Angela Peñaredondo

 

For the Marooned

​

Another Mojave town,
​            a bare lot,
​arid roadway scalding

the froth of your hemline.
​​            Last night’s history
​​left a pithy residue like burn marks,

their tracks running along the forehead.
​            ​Can’t you see
​we’re both strangers here?

Beautiful fiends unearthed,
​            ​left to dig
​through litter and lightning.

Like a dove, I’ve watched you
​​​            staring into the last cornhusk
​light. You want to rid yourself

of those battered names,
​​​            the loathe hanging 
​on roofs of mouths.

In the center of nothing,
​​​            one more drink
​of roadside’s nectar—

​​​            snuff out suicide. 
​Don’t you know muddled nightmares
​​​​            are just nightmares,
​​ghosts with a sweet tooth for fear?

Darling tempest, I pray
​​​​            you burst open
​​that rotten backdoor

with a silver pistol
​​​​​            and a galloping sound.
​Inamorata of flames,

hitchhiker of dreams,
​​​​            (anywhere in the echo blackness)
​rush rush

to some swirling field
​​​​            or rattle bone creek—
​​I don’t care.

Lets you and me
​​​​            make it again
​​and again
​​​​            ferocious. 

 

What Kind Of Blue?

​

You weren’t born here.  I can see that.
​I ask myself was it the cold whipping
​on your skin? How you left Kansas City
​like memories never meant a damn.

Wildwood, you leapt to the black road,
​hot metal, hands spiraling the wheel.
​Don’t think you loved just one place. 
​Don’t know if you ever left a woman.

Your cheek mark on a pillow, light—
​a melody ascending on her back.   You dreamt
​about Brando, not a Missouri Breaks Brando,
​but a sunnier poolside Brando.   Months later,

you creep down Alameda & Seventh,
​dig fingertips into fractures of sidewalks,
​tiptoe a quivering line through damp
​hallways.  Menace runs like hot blood

along these alleys, begs with a strap
​and a blade.  You slouch in a motel room,
​thick with oil.  All day the TV glimmers
​a faint buzz at the foot of a bed. 

A hand contorts the blinds. You squint
​at grass dirt blond, all bristle. 
​Your room trembles. A plane
​launches across the L.A. blue.

What kind of blue? A bright cyan
​or Dresden blue?  How about a Dodger
​blue?  You couldn’t say.

​Remember when you were a child?
​You cried so everyone would leave you
​the hell alone. They all kept coming.

 

​BIO 

​

ANGELA PEÑAREDONDO: Born in Iloilo City, Philippines, Angela Peñaredondo is a poet and artist from Los Angeles, California. Currently, she is part of the University of California, Riverside’s MFA program in Creative Writing. Angela is a recipient of a Gluck Fellowship, Fishtrap Fellowship, University of Los Angeles California’s Community Access Scholarship in poetry and a Mendocino Coast Writers Conference (MCWC) Scholarship. She was selected as runner-up for the 2012 Atlantis Poetry Award, and won 2nd place for MCWC’s 2012 Poetry contest. Her work has appeared in Burningword, the Poet’s Billow, 20x20 Magazine, Global Graffiti and Noyo River Review. Her work was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.