Chantarelle's Notebook

Thinly Veiled

I want to be
thinly veiled
for you
so you can
detect movement
under my surface
where my skin
is what
I speak
and my blood
is what
I mean
your x-ray vision
revealing
the connection
in between

(First appeared in Milk Sugar 2013)

Bekah Steimel is a poet whose work has been published globally. Recent poems have appeared in Impossible Archetype, Paper and Ink Zine, and Memoryhouse Magazine. She lives in St. Louis and can be found online at bekahsteimel.com and followed on Twitter and Instagram @BekahSteimel.

Slender Secrets
(first published in Anti-Heroin Chic, July 12th, 2017)

He thinks I had a choice. This grandpa cop
in hipster glasses, ironed shirt who writes
my words like tendrils, mansion, doesn’t stop
to question that they might be true. First night,
seduced, at six, into your sly service,
the circles drawn on dolls you say are meant
for me unless I listen. Go from nervous
to abject fear by twelve years old. You send
by then your pixie proxy, swimming pools
with slender secrets. Sharp sacrifice we
surmise because we both see. Two tools,
who’ll slice, like air, for you, a strawberry.
You taught me that a knife is but a key;
to kill a friend, not choice, necessity.

Kristin Garth is a poet from Pensacola and a sonnet stalker. In addition to Chantarelle’s Notebook, her sonnets have stalked magazines like Five: 2: One, Glass, Anti-Heroin Chic, Occulum, Drunk Monkeys, Luna Luna and many more. Her chapbook Pink Plastic House is available from Maverick Duck Press, and she has two forthcoming: Pensacola Girls (Bone & Ink Press, Sept 2018) and Shakespeare for Sociopaths (The Hedgehog Poetry Press Jan 2019). Follow her kneesocks and new Slenderman anthology project with @justin_karcher on Twitter: @lolaandjolie

When Rosa Exhales Me

Sitting so near, we matched
in the dark, Rosa made it seem
like our tiny spark would never
go out and we could relight us—
all the times we glared at each
other, she… waiting for me but
despite the flame that kept torching
from inside, outside on our wall
I couldn’t make the move, she
craved. While lighting new
cigarettes hand-rolled in my presence,
I loved the way Rosa’s eyes lit up
always undressing, her most
wishful skin leaning over softly
revealing even more while letting
down her hair, Her way of teasing—
Rosa sinfully passing smokes
with fingers untouched. Some nights
I am still fiery on that wall, I picture
Rosa effortlessly exhaling me
from the side of her lips, past
crickets simmering, I am always
the one blinking back, and she, still
reaches with her hungriest eyelashes.

Anaïs Nin Invites Me

Although I am the one
holding her volume,
Nin knows how to read
me, she loves stroking
my senses while taking me
on every page, she unzips
my attention with each
elongated sentence, Anaïs
flashes the most curvaceous
body paragraphs, with chapter
legs that go on forever, every
line from lips that spread
tempting text like flesh
I repeat, she tantalizes my mind.
seducing with every word I feel
her devouring voice, I must
confess, my Delta, my Venus
knows how to read me wanting
to explore so much more volume,
clinging unfinished Nin takes over
my mind, slipping off the book
cover, articulating tongues… so
inviting Anaïs loves to leave me—
afterword, gripping beyond her spine.

She Loves to Feel Every Scar

Like grooves
on a record,
but these sizzle
not with feedback
of tremolos, each one
are self-created calls,
and responses etched
by needles, not looking
for sounds on vinyl
but seeking out verses,
refrains oozing with cuts
that seep inside reverbing
through her stockings, always
passing the skin, leaving
scratches in the same place—
when the needle glides
over these spiraling moods
stinging spins, pulsating
again, from riffs
surfacing deep
every cut feels like
a gift, no matter
how brief the blistering
her blood surrounds,
addicted to the quivers—
each release hooks her
skin, reverberating like speakers,
always scratching on repeat.

Adrian Ernesto Cepeda is the author of the full-length poetry collection Flashbacks & Verses… Becoming Attractions from Unsolicited Press and the poetry chapbook So Many Flowers, So Little Time from Red Mare Press.

His poetry has been featured in The Yellow Chair Review,poeticdiversity, The Wild Word, The Fem, Rigorous, Palette Poetry and Lunch Ticket’s Special Issue: Celebrating 20 Years of Antioch University Los Angeles MFA in Creative Writing.

One of his poems was named the winner of Subterranean Blue Poetry’s 2016 “The Children of Orpheus” Anthology Contest and two of his poems “Buzz Me” and “Estranged Fruit” were nominated for Best of the Net in 2015 and 2016.

Adrian is an LA Poet who has a BA from the University of Texas at San Antonio and he is also a graduate of the MFA program at Antioch University in Los Angeles where he lives with his wife and their cat Woody Gold. You can connect with Adrian on his website: http://www.adrianerne stocepeda.com/

Dhanurāsana (Bow Pose)

We are balanced on our stomachs with our legs bent,
feet pushing forward as we reach back and grab our ankles and
the yogi tell us to lift our chests and we will hold it for ten,

ten infinitely long breaths as we come into this position.
Eyes closed, but we can still feel the crispness of a March evening
fresh-picked and arranged at the market, with its subtle stars,

nine, and the last breaths of winter still clinging to its hair.
Collarbones creak. We draw our shoulder blades together. We feel
the tension of heartwood, running from the knots of the crown,

eight, crossing the ribs like xylophones, coiling down the spine
and through the legs: we become density. Blood turns to sap. And
arms are straining to be bowstrings, stretching back until,

seven, our heels are cupped in our palms and the body is one
united mass of tension. We rock back and forth slightly, more like
boats than bows, inhaling, dipping our sterns, exhaling,

six, letting our breaths touch the breath that comes in through
one open window. Somewhere there is a change. Some
divine archer is reaching through the roof and plucking our elbows,

five, saying more pull, still more, and he speaks through
the yogi who says open your heart. This is the contradiction:
drawn so taut that you think everything will snap, and at the same time,

four, surrender as the ribs yawn and the ankles grow sweaty.
Open your heart. The chakra shifts. We can tell that they are stirring
behind sternums, heavy-headed nodules of green, waiting to,

three, burst. They dip and nod like the capsules of opium poppies,
swollen as cartoon bombs. Anahata, uninjured, unjammed,
hoping to open and spread a bit of its color. We are almost there,

two, we feel ourselves quiver with the strain and the release.
We are full of these deep, primal body messages that we can’t call
thoughts. It is knowing. When fingers slip from ankles, everything,

one, snaps loose. Heart gone nova. Bow fired. The whole spirit
turned into an arrow, shooting upward through an open window, where
it will pierce the sky and drown in the first rain of the season.