High Horse

(painting of Frank Stanford by Ginny Stanford found in Beinecke Library)


Happy New Year 

9:00 pm happy new year! I hear over the fence 
Even the frogs are quiet despite the neighbors loud ass generator 
I wonder if they died in the storm, the frogs 

Of course Amy from El Paso has something to say 
something mild to moderately homophobic and 
mild to moderately sexually repressed to say 

It’s so fucking beautiful outside the air is dry for once it’s like fall and 
it’s driving me crazy I want to thrive in it 
Scream in it fuck in it love in it 

Is everything good we've ever had at the expense of another, 
a perfect clear blue sky and low humidity 
Because someone’s grandma's house is flying away and 
someone else is getting their shit handed to them 

I always thought extreme heat made me feel most alive now 
I crave the stinging slap of winter on my cheeks 
Shallot and sherry sausage, a good piece of hearty grainy toast with chive butter Sautéed kale and a cup of coffee, with the paper 
All after spending the morning tending to each others softest spaces 
I wanna read a real good novel 

about Florida 
         a real juicy true crime with tall grass about 
         a game show trivia content creator at odds with 
         an air traffic controller solved by 
         a laugh track engineer

He used to say to me, 
do you think we’ll all be vegan someday? 
I mean, we’re so far removed from the process, from primal 
instincts. we moved too fast! 

It can be so hard to show your true self 
vulnerability a challenge 
to risk the nipple out 
balls hanging, belly folded 


Untitled Day after Frank Stanford 

Cold coffee and cane syrup 
Alone to the right 
Chewing on a lemon rind 

Grease streaking my fingertips 
from a spitting skillet 
Stroked into my hair 
And pulled from my scalp 
White like the moon 

I don’t sit on the clover flowers 
I am a mountain on the side 
Bees work in the heat 
I stare at them until the green light takes the 
Corners of my eyes 
Coming from nowhere and 
Everywhere 

The one I used to love ticks up 
Peeling and spitting tails 
Massage my spine on an ant hill 

At a distance while he sucks spice off the 
Mud soaked pink and white flesh a 
Young boy in coveralls shakes the sand outta his hair
Cigarette ash like flower petals my love 
Hollered up into the grass my 
White boots dodging cypress knees jamming out of 
Bricks spilling out over one another 
Like the belly I think I have in my jeans 

I swat a gnat out of my eye behind me big mouth spits 
Sour fruit at the woman behind the counter 
Good kush, big dreams 
Baby don’t ask me what I need 
She smiles at me while I take my honey to go 
Dark storm clouds mix with the dawn of night 

Two babydogs snap at me one on each side 
Chained to posts and gate 
A grapefruit swells in my mouth 
Sage smoke floats out of a window 
A woman with hair like wildfire in brush 
Steps into the doorway of a house I never seen nobody cross before 


Big Dumb Crush - The Reboot 

I’ll never live down that text 
Suck and fuck 
Dude you shouldn’t have told me you sent that 
And ride 
I’m going to have to say that to you all the time now 

Back then 
There was floral wallpaper 
Or maybe it was a floral mattress 
A maybe floral mattress with blood stains 
From my knees and 
From my insides
now 
My vision has a pastoral glaze 
Its overshare summer and 
The pendulum has snapped from the kickback 

The glaze is sticky and vegetal 
Glossy and iridescent 
Backyards with VCRs 
Too much stuffing full of weed butter 

Cheap beer and slippery freezer burned hot wings 
Intoxication by sweat and fuzzy guitars
Smokey porches, steamy basements 

A reunification and a coronation 
Youth and lust and all that surged 
Resurfaces and ripples in the glaze 

Here the fruit is heavy and even the pits are sweet 
I tell him when he walks around in my dreams 
Conjured at least once a year and I swear
Its true 
I believe in my dreams 

Unknown Legend 
Too much gas 
No 
Brakes, no brakes 

I didn’t roll around in cat shit but I’m sprayed by the thumb in the hose 
Dragon mouths have no muzzles spitting on 
Years of liquor confessionals 
Can I crawl inside his mouth so full of teeth 
Please
I’d tell him I’m decently grown now 
I’ll show you 
And I prefer being stoned or sober, really 
Dry my scales in the sun 
Steam floats from my chest 

The other day down the block one of the guys 
The guy that I need to know 
I’ve been told 
The guy that takes care of everyone 
I know 
He said 
Can I ask you a personal question 
I replied yes 
He said 
Do you have an old man 
I replied I used to but I’m doing me 
He said 
You sure are pretty 
Goodnight 
Goodnight 
We said 

I can’t tell the guy down the block about the text 
The moon is in Aries I’m told and 
My dumpster fire has wheels 
There's been a few 
Dumpster fires around town 

I thought she’d be there holding daisies, she always waits for me 

Claire Dahm lives in New Orleans and works in film and music production management. These poems are selections from a recently published collection titled Big Dumb Crush. The collection is inspired by and exists as a tender offering to the exhilaration and intoxication of having crushes, whether on people, dreams, places, or memories themselves. Their intensity, leaving a smoldering crater and, from within the fall out, its own life forms grow.