-5°
art by Trevor Cunnington
by Tashiana Seebeck
Let’s tear open the oil paint
sky in Mariposa where you first knuckled the loam
and said Let’s–
I am afraid to tell God your name lest
he look up at your spruce face and unmake
the tongue tip behind your teeth I’ve come
to know well. December looms and lingers for a lifetime.
The poppies know only hoar frost
and woodsmoke. A man in the shape
of your last lurched out from the doorway lacquered
shut with dust and all the longleaf pines shuttered closed.
O God, let’s if it pleases you.
I am no longer afraid of the cold.
You alone know my name.
Tashiana Seebeck (she/her) is originally from Southern California. She holds an MFA in poetry from Colorado State University. Her work can be found in ANMLY, The Marrow, Digging Press, and on poets.org as an Academy of American Poets Prize recipient. Find her at https://seebeck.carrd.co/
Trevor Cunnington is a queer and neurodivergent writer/artist/educator who lives in Toronto. They are the poetry editor of KayTell Ink. They are influenced by the insights of chaos mathematics, and their work has appeared in The Lotus-Eaters, Radon, Poetry Lighthouse, BlazeVox, God's Cruel Joke, and others. They like to garden and are fascinated by harnessing natural forces. One of their poems was nominated for a Monarch award for Queer Literature. You can find them on instagram @trevorcunnington and on bluesky @trevorcunning.bsky.social.
