poems: Victoria McCoy

A Name for This

1

I used to buy that homeless man coffee—the salty breath of Venice on our necks, he,

cradling the toothbrush he claimed an angel down the boardwalk gave him.

2

The halos on the ancient Roman statues are not in fact halos, but an early device

meant to keep bird shit off their defenseless faces.

3

Maybe my limbs are made mostly for decoration. Someone’s vitreous ornaments.

4

The first case of homesickness was diagnosed three hundred twenty-two years ago

by a Swiss physician: traveling mercenary. Finally, a name for this aching—

5

—study the red breath that blooms across the wintered cheeks of strangers.

Learn to unlove a man, street by street.

6

When the city boys press their mouths to mine, I keep hoping I’ll recognize

something in the mess of hurried lips.

7

Thomas de Quincey was a renter. Frantic scribbling on paper scraps hour-glassing

through his fingers; when the room grew too swollen, he’d move.

8

Piano keys leaking through the speakers, I picture my ex-lover’s hands.

9

Some days I am the renter. Some days, the room.

10

When I miss him this much, I stand on the sidewalk and practice forgiving my

shadow.

How to Begin Grieving

It starts as an unnamable hunger.

Army of wrecking balls

in your tissue paper house.

Let it orbit the empty rooms

of your intestines, flood the esophagus

and plunge down again like a river

that cannot find its ocean.

Do not fool yourself—

this is not where it stops.

Your torso a deflated accordion, fix

arms and legs akimbo. Make of yourself

the most beautiful chalk outline.

Do not fault the highway its appetite.

Blame the windshield, the other driver’s

affinity for whiskey, her recognizable teeth.

When they lavish you with pity, take; drink;

play the part to perfection. Brand yourself

widow, orphan, anything not worth naming

the dead. Do not forget about the hunger,

nesting beneath that dry parchment of skin.

Frightened. Little tyrant of your wanting.

Do not call out her name.

VICTORIA LYNNE MCCOY grew up along the beaches of Southern California. She received her MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, and proudly claims a BA in “The Power of Words: Creative Expression as a Catalyst for Change” from the University of Redlands, during which time she also studied in Paris. Her work has appeared in The November 3rd Club, Redlands Review, and PANK. She currently works for Four Way Books and lives happily in Brooklyn.