Let’s Go For a Walk, Into the Cave, & You Do You Do

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Ashley Hudson

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Let’s Go for a Walk

Lately we are convincing
our friends not to be so cruel

to themselves. The magnolias
dropping their annoying

empty cups.

The tiny cactus giving over
one invisible briar.

We come to the place where
the over-sized dog statue

showcases his immense
iron testicles

immortal in aggression.

Why do lovers leave
with roughly one half

our memories? Tell me
where do I find the lawn

with so many children
I can feel relieved?

In the still life, we appear

stiff as criminals with
dubious, sinful bouquets.

The little red hen
sings a long high note

from her immaculate pen.

How do we convince one another
we are not so terribly alone?

__________

Into the Cave

The cave is arrogant, but we enter it anyway.
Less about the lustily smeared handprints
than it is to be inside and know its memories
are not of you.

The cave is righteous, but we enter it anyway.
Though it has never known the sun, it disdains
any show of light. Naturally, we begin to doubt
we ever longed for vision, and in this way

we become translucent like the shrimp,
and in this way we learn the architecture
of constant doubt. The cave wanted us,

and we entered, forgetting to take one last look
at one another, forgetting to make a plan
or imagine a map, a secret code, a word
to force us to recall the sweet features

of our faces before the black absence
licked the color from our eyes
and no amount of reaching
would ever find us hand in hand.

__________

You Do You Do

The innards of the tree are green. Wood grown as a wall
framing the rocking chair, the cedar chest,
the lace tablecloth, the little table in the hall
propping a picture of tall dead trees.

Face aching against a windowpane
still cool from winter,
this first spring storm.

The flowers will be happy. Wind pulls
the daisy petals. Love and love-not,
three miles apart, the same muddy road.
The lightning will kill two cows

full of milk. The lightning will scorch your image
on the pane. Our first handshake,
two pitchers of rain dancing coyly.

Thunder takes the floor for splinters
of dry geometry. Something outside
is crying. The howl of a wolf proves
you still love me.

If a squirrel crosses the clothesline,
you still love me. If clothes drip from hems, if
a stray thread catches that drop,

you still love me. If metal poles attract lightning, if
lightning moves in lines, if
rain-soaked socks turn to fire, if
ashes rise, float over here, settle,

stick to this windowpane you still love oh dear spine of lightning
blood rushing hair standing on end you do
you do still love me.

__________

Ashley Hudson’s writing has appeared in The Fairy Tale Review, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, The Southeast Review, Anomalous, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She received her MFA in creative writing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She currently teaches at Rice University and lives in Portland, Oregon.

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