Michael Juliani
—
Breaking Roots
Our bony eucalyptus
sways like a skyscraper.
In its nests, the neighborhood’s
music grows. My mother’s father
painted this house.
He notched my height
with pruners
till I outgrew the shovel.
I use it to break them,
pulling threads
from the earth.
In the pre-rain steam,
warning shots patter.
An owl hoots early, thrown
by the false dark.
Portrait of my Lover in a Distant City
I imagine it’s you
in Freud’s paintings, cold skin
splotched against another
lover’s thighs — that blooming
afforded by early evening sex
to the overworked,
the indebted. Winter inspires
the oddest thriving, nurseries
under power lines
and daydreams of the Sistine Chapel
projected on the roof
at CitiBank. The snow
crusts, your painted hip
drying white, while his hand
frees you like the peonies
climbing toward the cables’
electrified silhouettes.
Michael Juliani is a poet, editor, and writer from Pasadena, California. His poems have appeared in Bennington Review, Epiphany, SARKA, Washington Square Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Los Angeles.
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