2 poems by Emily Tuttle

My Mother Asks Me to Put Myself in My Father’s Shoes

I wrapped him in the ocean
so the waves
could help him sleep,
roll over him
like seashells,
resting while the world
crashed.
We built him from a lake
and his sister from the lilies—
that one is an oasis now,
koi fish flicking
in her chest.
She asks how babies are made,
and I say the soggy parts,
and she asks if that’s where
our scratches are from,
cracks in our
brown leaf skin?
I shush her with lullabies,
old songs used to help
bread rise,
but stop when
we get too loud,
tracing labyrinth patterns
on my wife’s tired thighs,
once they are asleep,
I wish we could pluck
the feathers off her chest
to build us stronger wings.
Not like Icarus, who flew too high,
but like Orpheus, who wanted too much.

They Only Grow When It Rains

Shove me in
a cardboard box
elbows akimbo
splinters in
soft places
exposed
underarms
jugular
chalk lines
maybe
if I cram
somewhere
outside of you
I can be
crushed
by something more
beautiful.