"Making Matcha in the Afternoon" and "Salt"

Two poems about mythology, dreams, and imagination

Kate Wylie (she/they) is a poet from St. Louis, Missouri. Wylie graduated from Webster University in 2018, reads fiction for The New Southern Fugitives, and has published poetry across America. Wylie is currently studying under 2023 Guggenheim Award winner Shara McCallum at Pacific University.

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Making Matcha in the Afternoon

Your body is an unturned stone in our bed.

My hands are warm. I want to melt you.

Listen. Wind-salt whisper. Glass bottles

hanging in cypress trees. Blue algae

ancestors, handful of sunflower seeds.

Galileo stands at his windowsill

getting better acquainted with death, tilting

his telescope into the darkening sky. This is how

to revere in reverse. 

I skin both knees on the sidewalk,

then shoplift a pocketful of radishes, sing in my sleep 

about the snowcone stand destroyed by rain

and fishbones nailed to windowless houses.

The heatwaves have silenced even cicadas. 

My palms aren’t flame

but water. People gather by the sea 

with cups of green tea

to talk about the man riding through town on a vespa.

He forgoes a helmet, cigarette dangling from his mouth.

This is how to love the seventh of seven sons,

demons strapped to his back, that moonlit travel,

his sure unraveling. 

This is how autumn comes to Bourbonville.

Ants march single-file along the pane.

Burnt orange oaks and overburdened Fuji branches

reach toward one another.

Leaves collect along the fenceline.

This is how Galileo plays God 

again, leaning from the Northern tower, one finger

gesturing toward Jupiter, another balancing 

Libra’s scales, attempting to justice the universe

while the moon and sun waltz

to a song he’s never heard before.

Salt

Once more, the cards show

queen of swords reversed,

coffers and coffins, 

horses trotting single-file.

She signals destruction,

mirrors and marriage.

Please, Adonis, point me

in the direction of affection.

Your muscled body shining

against the brine of mine;

sweat, heat, our gravitational

string of tragically bad habits.

Where orange meets blue,

a queue of broken hearts.

East beach, overrun

by towheaded blondes,

tourists laying together

and sun-bleached sand. Please,

Adonis, I see you 

everywhere. Tell me

the story of two tireless fish

so I feel less

alone, insane, less like the moon

hanging her head 

in a sky of friendly starlight.

Once more, I’m down here digging 

my own god damn grave;

the dirt slips right through 

these unwebbed fingers.

I didn’t sleep, but spent all night wandering 

the river of dreams, its dark water

reaching for my ankles.

Once more, it calls me

lover. I wish I was

some kind of fighter.

These days glide by

on cold silver ice skates;

I reach out to make them stop

but break my wrist instead.

Please, Adonis, tell the serpent 

to depart. Venus stands

on seashell edge, birthed from foam,

trying not to weep now. Please

say something sweet. 

Become a slice of watermelon 

in the palm of my marbled hand.

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