Gion Davis

I want the ocean to kick my ass outside the Washaway Laundromat

San Diego, remember, praying for a grapefruit or a breakthrough or just

one more bald January. I wish the wind would rip me to pink crepe

birthday party ribbons & send me dancing across the picnic tables. But it

doesn’t. Were those guys skateboarding or were they doing kettlebell

exercises in the 24 hour gym parking lot playing EDM out of their cars?

There are the elephants behind the fence. I watch them being moved from

one place to another. Can you move an elephant who doesn’t want to? I

get a big nosebleed in our dogbreath neighborhood & more than anything I

want to go back & do it again, stand in a circle with my friends sucking on

one joint, ride around in a car that’s too full, let a stranger’s spit hit my

cheek while talking too close. I want to throw myself into so many arms.

This loneliness―

after Kobayashi Issa

everywhere I look white peonies

so big they clog up my throat

the mountains are burning

along with your love for me

once so alive

now a hot crackling scar

that’s what’s great

about this place

you can get a hotdog

at the ballpark

and see someone

in khaki shorts

giving CPR to a woman

they hit with their car

every light is green

and 38th Avenue is empty

I could drive all the way to Venus

there on the horizon

the belly button stud of the sky

from here at least

it feels like permission

to disappear

on a corner a man holds up

a motel bible

like a blazing cross

this inertia―

embryonic white

raspberries on their canes

my love is a bruise

as wide as Nevada

what can I do

Gion Davis is a queer poet from Española, New Mexico where they grew up on a sheep ranch. Their poetry has been featured in Wax Nine Journal, SELFFUCK, Okay Donkey Magazine, and others. They have received the Best New Poets of 2018 Prize selected by Ocean Vuong. They are the editor of Rhinestone Magazine and their chapbook Love & Fear & Glamour was published in 2019. They graduated with their MFA in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2019 and currently live in Denver, Colorado. Gion can be found on Instagram @starkstateofmind & on Twitter @gheeontoast.