Laura Salvatore | Ode to My Arms & More

Ode to My Arms

Round limbs aloft

nestle creatures big

and small to my chest

Hands at each end

sweep my hair up

brush out knotted locks

For so long I hated

how they looked

naked and fleshy

Thank you for dragging

groceries home from the store

while legs drag

Once, I carried my

betta fish down the road,

tank water sloshing

Place palms on gifts

from friends

hard cider honey jar

Feel the air, shuffle

cards, crack knuckles,

caress.

Evening Walk in Newport, Rhode Island

Across the street a group of friends gathers

behind an old fence. Is it lonelier to

be somewhere new by yourself instead of

yesterday’s familiar town? Cracked open

window and wooden front porch of it all.

On days like these, I return to the summer

I worked at the opera house.

Here I go again, carried back in the

mansions of Newport–same gold enamel

in the entryway, lush wooden staircase.

Me, unnatural in the middle,

walking to the big lonely parking lot.

Me, a crooked picnic table clinging

to the side of an audacious hill.

I Seem to Have Lost It

won’t light my candles hide the red one

on the floor behind my altar

cards remain unshuffled

under my bedside table

internet psychic’s words

fall short

I’m back in the malaise–

unthrilling bus ride past

row of auto repair shops

left my gold bracelet at home

Yesterday a mantra slipped by me

I was too tired to catch

can the body be less fulfilled than at the gym

arms rotate over the elliptical to propel movement

Outside

sopping wet lambs ear in the park

next to four lanes of traffic

girl hunching on the bench

wears the Lord’s holiest outfit:

neon sneakers, shiny pants, fake fur coat, vape pen

Laura Salvatore is a poet living in Queens, New York. She received her MFA at The City College of New York. In 2022, Laura was a fellow for the Zip Code Memory Project, which sought to find community-based ways to memorialize the devastating losses resulting from the Coronavirus. She participated in the micro-residency Poets Afloat in April 2022 and was a work study scholar for the Poetry By the Sea conference in May 2023. Her poetry can be found in Movable Type, Pith Journal, Angel City Review, and Apricity Magazine, amongst others.