Radiant Porcelain

By Patrick Holian

we stood at the edge of the cliff, overlooking the sea,

down in Pacifica, remember, near that Fancy Taco Bell, the one

I took my sister to for her prom after her boyfriend Rick

drowned down in Santa Cruz, the one where that off-duty FBI

agent saved that girl from getting raped, the one that

Trevor Hunter bet me $75 I couldn’t eat 15 Crunchwrap Supremes

and I got 12 in before I started to cry and vomit in

the parking lot, I hear he holds dead fish and dead elk in his

dating profile pics now, I think my sister fucked him

when she got sober, the first time, not the second time, he’s got

a cicada tattooed on his ribcage, he’s got a beautiful dick,

from what I’ve heard, he joined this very hip Christian church and

told my mom all about it at Safeway, told her he’s unraveling

the mysteries of the universe through or with the blood of Christ,

I can’t remember which it was, but do you remember,

you gave me this radiant porcelain plate, it was blue and white

and there was an image of a peacock engulfed in flames

painted on it, some artist friend of yours in Berlin made it specially

for you, or for me, I guess, it was a gift, you gave me

that plate and a cold Meximelt from the Fancy Taco Bell, you sat

me down and told me that I didn’t have to choose between

tenderness and strength, you served me that cold Meximelt on that

gorgeous plate and kissed my forehead and told me tenderness was strength.

—

Patrick Holian

The writer is a Mexican American writer from San Francisco, California, with an MFA in Creative Writing from St. Mary’s College of California and a PhD in English from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Gigantic Sequins, The Cincinnati Review, PRISM international, Yalobusha Review, The Indianapolis Review, Southern Humanities Review, Moon City Review, Bennington Review, The Acentos Review, Peach Magazine, and Salt Hill Journal, and they a finalist for Michigan Quarterly Review’s 2021 Goldstein Prize in Poetry. You can follow Patrick on Twitter @HolianMartin and Instagram @cautiouslypessimistic.