Joanna C. Valente
poetry
WATER SPELL
“That part of me isn't here anymore”
-Nine Inch Nails
Above or below
there is no
sound —
just vibration, a humming
the space between a vulture’s wings
or a group of bees the shape
of a face you used to have
before you became another
[ there are times
I dream of a voice
that takes me
away
into a stone house below the water
as if I was born inside the house inside
the wa
ter
and you were there
rib or no rib
a place with no gunshots
just a memory of voice
]
and then the other version
is about a lake
not a stone house
where I am a lake
with a spell
where you live inside
a black furnace —
you are the thing
that heats
it up
a fire without fire
speaking another language
that you’ve forgotten but still remember
in dreams where your skin
is too hot
to touch
so you swim until your skin
falls off
and you become
something else
I can’t see —
the water has risen
crystals freezing our bodies
above midnight because midnight
doesn’t exist here
and we aren’t really sure
who are the ghosts
and what river is
the real one
because everyone keeps
getting lost or killed
along the way —
please just leave us, we pray
THERE’S NO HELL
“All love is lost”
-Slayer
Are you in heaven now?
I lock the door unsure
which of us is the monster —
unsure if this is the version
you died of cancer
or heart attack or stroke
or pills or ghosts
or if this is the version where
you’re still in the dining room
finishing the squash soup
or if you’re still
the only goddamn woman
standing
can see right through a moving
train and if this is the version
where I ask you to come
home with me in Brooklyn,
back home
and if this is the version
where you say you’ve had too much
to drink to write me
and instead say, I’d fuck your sister
and her boyfriend too
before I dream of a sea
to envelope me, before I drink
bleach to find if hell is where
the driver says
sweetheart, wait. I don’t know
if this is the version where you hate
the driver, where you love
yourself. I lock the door
unsure which of us has become
the monster.
A Relationship in Songs
This is not a dream sequence
darlin'—
there will never be another you
sure of love; everybody's got
to learn sometime how high the moon
call it fate, call it karma, the shadow
of your smile—
lose your smile, would you?
Wolves still cry.
Your ex-lover is dead.
The body appears
without you. I'll be your mirror
soul on fire, full moon, lust for life.
I say a little prayer.
Everything is illusion
rid of me, black magic, lemon glow—
moonlight becomes you, the everlasting
gaze into dust—eyes without a face
like a prayer
to build a home; my love grows in darkness
night and day.
Everybody's got a home but me.
I've never been there. Goodbye darling.
I could be happy, blue angel, but not tonight
love will tear us apart; all we ever wanted
was everything
into the black, all the things you are
paint it black.
I'll love you more than you'll ever know.
The sky lit up the hidden river
of my life—
someone to watch over me
in the gloaming, vampire again,
re: person I knew. Is that all there is,
beauty queen? We've been had—
you're fucking
no one. Play the goddamned
part.
Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York. They are the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (ELJ Publications, 2016) & Xenos (Agape Editions, 2016), and is the editor of A Shadow Map: Writing by Survivors of Sexual Assault (CCM, 2017). They received their MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Joanna is the founder of Yes, Poetry and the managing editor for Civil Coping Mechanisms and Luna Luna Magazine. Some of their writing has appeared in Prelude, BUST, Spork Press, The Feminist Wire, and elsewhere. Joanna also leads workshops at Brooklyn Poets. joannavalente.com / Twitter: @joannasaid / IG: joannacvalente