‘WHITE GOLD,’ a poem by Christine Larusso

This story is a part of Picture situation 8, “Abandoned,” a supercharged expertise of changing into and religious renewal. Benefit from the journey! (Wink, wink.) See the complete package deal right here.

It might be clever to let you know this like a plainsong:
no bullshit. To speak concerning the white gold — lithium — deep

beneath the Salton Sea, beneath lifeless fish and passing birds
with woolen names like wooden stork and bittern. How

each dry patch of land round this physique,
shaped by runoff and overreaching agriculture — an accident —

had been forgotten till we found
a wealthy mineral to make our personal, to maintain the vehicles

at velocity. To allow the filched territory and motor to maintain
steady. Nobody has, and nobody will, examine the associated fee.

We pledge allegiance to land that by no means belonged
to you or to me. Most of us are thieves. Salt of the earth, mineral

soil, these on the brink, the ocean’s edge. DDT, arsenic, lead.
There are not any prayers for the receding water,

the mud storms that attain for miles.
Perhaps I do know the sensation this land feels:

previous the dew of younger magnificence, caught
in a passing storm of males and their calls for, wishes.

(Willem Verbeeck / For The Instances)

What’s left to salvage or worship? I ask the faint line
that extends like a slender river from the nook of my eye,

research the cloud my breath makes when winter drops.
Sure, the desert will get chilly. They are saying it’s the large

inexperienced alternative, and nobody has vitality left to argue.
A bottomless cup full of guarantees: We’ve heard this opera earlier than.

I got here right here to whisper one thing beautiful and fleeting,
a narrative of a woman nearly like me, who loves an journey

and rejects the sting of each horizon, every line within the poem
teetering on with out ending. However I got here up empty, bare

with nothing however melancholy for the long run and filth in my braids,
a physique that may’t assist it. A love letter, decomposed.

Christine Larusso is an L.A.-based poet. Her first e book, “There Will Be No Extra Daughters,” was chosen by Carmen Giménez Smith because the 2017 winner of the Madeleine P. Plonsker Rising Author’s Residency Prize. Her poems have appeared in publications together with the Literary Evaluation, Pleiades and Courtroom Inexperienced. She is a producer for Rachel Zucker’s podcast “Commonplace.”

Willem Verbeeck is a Belgian photographer primarily based in Los Angeles, primarily focusing his work on the on a regular basis landscapes round him.

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