after C.D

Yes, I still use Facebook, and set my status to lollygagging whenever I’m with you. We both can’t be meanderers. You’re leaving for work. I’m staying home and filling up my time to make our time more precious. I’m geometric. I husband around the living room. My life is full of life and loss but I was never a loser only a let-goer and somehow I’m still with you. But not now. You’re at the office so I need something to do. I saw a saw and built a birdhouse on the back porch. A European Starling visited me. Left. Then came back again. It’s a sign. I have returned to you a second time. I wasn’t a painter in my past life, but you were, and I was your favorite brush and you held me so gently just like you do now. I dreamt a flower and gave birth to a seed, remember? It turned into a garden and now the birds use it for choir practice, every morning, but we don’t mind. I make you laugh but not on purpose. I don’t want to be a funny woman anymore. I want to be a good man for you. My ears want to dance with your voice. My hands reach to unearth your warmth. And you are not here yet. You are still at work and I make the bed and feed the flowers. I need something to do with my hands so I click through the photographs on the screen and see you and me and our mouths are open and our teeth are white and we are smiling and laughing and looking like two people whose only occupation is love.

Published October 13, 2024

Kailah Figueroa is a rhetorical engineer, memory archivist, and part-time prose stylist. Her work is research-based, invoking lyrical, visual, and hybrid forms, and has been featured/forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, Black Warrior Review, Torch Literary Arts, Pigeon Pages, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and has been awarded fellowships from the Fulbright Commission and Vermont Studio Center. She received her BA in Creative Writing at Susquehanna University in 2023 and is a current Poetry MFA candidate at Rutgers-Newark '25. You can find more of her work at kailahfigueroa.com

April Werle is a narrative painter based in Missoula, Montana, whose work explores mixed-race identity, family, and belonging. Her recent solo exhibitions include Secret Life of a Multicultural Couple, Bell Projects, Denver, CO; Halo-Halo: The Mixed Children, ZACC, Missoula, MT; and Mga Hunghong Sa Diwata (Whispers of Spirits), Holter Museum of Art, Helena, MT. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at the Missoula Art Museum and The Other Art Fair Los Angeles. Werle is the recipient of the Emerging Artist Residency at Centrum, Port Townsend, Washington (2024). She was honored with the Creative West BIPOC Artist Fund Award (2024), the Montana Arts Council Strategic Investment Grant (2023), and the Montana Arts Council ARPA Grant (2022). April Werle has been invited to speak about her work at Montana State University, as the keynote speaker for A.S.I.A.’s 2nd Annual Multicultural Night (2024). Werle’s work has been published in New Visionary Magazine, Kapwa Magazine, and Mahalaya.