Marisa Lainson

Fall in California

Someone drops the marble of the world
into a glass of bourbon. A dark mouth
descends over the rim. Driving down the 5, we

sweat and hunger in our metal husk, counting
jacarandas limp against the overpass. Dutifully,
I witness the flash of purple flowers crushed

between tires and tar, crane my damp body
towards the capsized sedan belching flame
into a wobbling, wildfire sky—

Will it explode? you wonder idly. I implore:
Keep your eyes on the road. The heavy hand

of some bored, cosmic entity tilts the tumbler,
flushing us into October breathless and sick.
Jacarandas wave their bruised arms at our windshield

and beg us to take them somewhere, anywhere
else. Some say the Santa Ana winds are named
for Satan, caliente aliento de Satanás, but I know

the taste of God when he shoves
his dirty fingers in my mouth, the same way
I know fate is just another ghost 

story I wrap around my fear. There is no giant
in the smoking hills, only another
matchstick. The ungentleness of human hands.

The highway groans, and I turn up the radio.
Put my feet up on the dash. Watch the smoke
spill darker, stranger, black mold on a rotten orange.

You sing off-key, just under your breath.
The jacarandas burn.

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Marisa Lainson (she/they) is a queer poet from Southern California. She recently earned her MFA from the University of California, Irvine, where she served as Poetry Editor of Faultline Journal of Arts & Letters. Their work has appeared in The Journal, Poet Lore, The Pinch, Frontier Poetry, Peatsmoke Journal, Stonecoast Review and Foothill Poetry Journal, where they were a finalist for the 2021 Foothill Editor’s Prize.