Natalie Mau
Natalie Mau (she/ her) is a graduate poetry student in Georgia College & State University's Master of the Fine Arts in Creative Writing program, where she also serves as the assistant poetry editor for Arts & Letters literary journal. Her work can be found in journals such as Denver Quarterly, Buton Eye Review, and Drunk Monkeys.
In the Moments I'm Alone
for Allie
i search for god but come up empty. my cup cannot be filled. the house cannot stay warm; cracks decorate
the windows’ corners. a stinkbug waddles across the wall-- small, unwelcome jester. the cat watches, tail flicking like a flame,
but does not move.
i search for god between the couch cushions
but find only a quarter, some sand, the torn edge of a letter i wrote her-- unreadable, but still true. the stinkbug perches
on the mantel. the cat sizes up the jump, decides against it. i decide
god is not here today. they must be hiding
in a bowl of cherries that sits, untouched,
on someone else’s kitchen counter. the stinkbug lifts one little leg, takes flight.
the cat and i watch-- tracing the air, trying
to make out the shape absence takes as the bug disappears behind her favorite chair.
Wedding Prep
I am digging a trench at the base of a Chilean Mesquite tree with my
wife’s ex-boyfriend’s dad, John, scanning the hard, orange earth for fire
ants, when I feel something that feels like joy.
Maybe it’s the heat or the time difference or the state of the world, but I am clawing into the scorched earth with a
dented spade and welding gloves while my wife drinks her third
mimosa of the day with the rest of the wedding party and cries about
God knows what in a Pepto-Bismol pink bridesmaid’s dress with her
ex-boyfriend behind a locked bedroom door
and I feel good.
John tells me about the tree; the bark is dark red and waxy, always
anticipating fire. The roots are shallow, so I must be careful about where
I am digging. I dig and scrape and let dust coat my forearms because the
winds from earlier in the afternoon have died down and now it’s just me
and the sun.
I don’t mind the burn; I’ve never minded pain as long as it’s honest.
I focus on my gloved hands, how good they feel in the dirt; my
fingers trace the scar I am cutting across the yard as John strings
lights in the tree’s canopy.
John says the neighbors lost a tree recently because of too much rain.
Losing a tree out here, he says, is devastating. Shade is a luxury.
I tell him that the trees back home can’t ever get enough to drink. He
tells me there can be too much of a good thing.
