Time Lapse
In a time lapse, nothing happens smoothly. / Red horns quake as they splinter / from limbs on the bottlebrush.
“Time Lapse”
A hummingbird is pulled like a bull toward the loudest reds, lands on the inmost branch to preen
the arching back of her green torso. I think of the sentence
while I lowered myself to a frameless, twin-sized mattress:
Your neck looks sobreakable.
Red horns quake as they splinter from limbs on the bottlebrush. It was
walking around the cemetery I liked to visit when the weather was good,
And what did I say to him, Thank you
Gabrielle Bates is the author of the poetry collection Judas Goat (Tin House, 2023). Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, she currently works for Seattle's poetry-only bookstore Open Books: A Poem Emporium and co-hosts the podcast The Poet Salon. Her work can be found in the New Yorker, Poetry, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. www.gabriellebat.es / Twitter: @GabrielleBates
More by this author
Everything in Arm’s Reach
For the vast majority of the last few years, my life has spatially collapsed to one desk in one room in one apartment with one view. Sometimes it feels like too much life for one piece of furniture and a few windows to hold.
More in this series
Dark Blue
turn me into a place like home to you. / Say my name like the stars and / Let’s go out tonight.
Shivering in the Summertime
some days my own womb shivers at the thought of / my black ass children being thrown / against any wall
Self-Portrait with Cumin, Saffron, and Star Anise
To Cumin, Saffron, and Star Anise, sisters / of the roasted goat and rice ritual, daughters / of smoke and gossip, glowing and bloodwarm
