Kim Symbol: Revenge

By Cristina Holman

In the chip aisle a cloud passes
see it raining over a cistern at the
self-checkout     at the bottom
a body in a fist-thick
algae— 
 
     cold milk blue
     tinged raven calls
     three times
     to sink my finger
 
Meant to represent a stickiness. Like more something
 
disgusting— 
there is a low blue tone
that does not leave. I see myself
in a red suit
teeth tight    
retracting a ladder
 
     peach grass
     frozen green grapes
          silver pines diving toward the sea

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Varathane

By Cristina Holman

​In every album I am green
looking away
under eight coats of Varathane.   
 
If you want something bitter
this jar is tall
          lidded like the family
looking at your buzz cut.  Every set of eyes
leaning to the side            
          I think only about repression and beating Portal again.
                              Hair clippings
furled on the tiles.
 
I sit so far hunched forward
remembering the chipped lacquer
on that jacked church statue

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Cristina Holman is a poet, librarian and ceramic artist living and working on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwxw̱ ú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh).  Their debut chapbook, published with Artspeak Gallery in 2018, is titled Stop Wincing/We’re Fine, and their second chapbook, Repeater, was published in 2021 by Zed Press. Their work can be found in Bad Nudes magazine, Poetry is Dead, The Capilano Review, and Scrivener Creative Review.