Wanda Deglane

Creation Story

she owns only one piece of china, a small
butter dish she had wrapped in paper inside
her luggage. the plastic cups she snuck
home from the buffet, one at a time. the couch,
cloth and blue and a little tattered, was a gift,
as was the crib the baby now sleeps in.
when he comes home from sorting mail at
the post office, she faces the wall, pretends
to sleep. when he fucks her, she is silent.
tries not to think of home, thousands of miles
away, or cliffs tumbling into the gray sea,
or strangers living in her young skin. she tries
not to wish her world away. he finishes
without fanfare or thanks and falls snoring
into his pillowcase. the worm moon is
casting slivers of light through the blinds
and she can feel the train collision happening
inside her— the amethyst rain, the bruised
strawberries littering roads of blood and yarn.
in her dreams, she is pulling the pearl from
where it’s lodged itself in her organs, examining
the places it will grow tiny fingers and toes.
she crushes it in her fist. the baby dreams of
eyelashes and pink lemonade. turning
in his crib, he babbles, manina.

 


Wanda Deglane is a night-blooming desert flower from Arizona. She is the daughter of Peruvian immigrants and attends Arizona State University. Her poetry has been published or forthcoming from Rust + Moth, Glass Poetry, Drunk Monkeys, Yes Poetry, and elsewhere. Wanda is the author of Rainlily (2018), Lady Saturn (Rhythm & Bones, 2019), Honey-Laced Garbage Dreams (Ghost City Press, 2019), Venus in Bloom (Porkbelly Press, 2019), and Bittersweet (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2019).

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