Southerner Sweat, by Spencer Mirabal
Ciao, Pardner
Montana royalty
That cattle call in your heart
herds you home
Through the muck of indefinite pandemic
you freely, gruelingly gallop back to your family’s ranch
twenty-five hours in two days
And now, much like early on in our love
everything in my environment
magically smells like you
Your olive thighs must’ve
seared themselves into my
sweaters, my
coffee mugs, my
cutting board, my
potato patties, my
armpits
Like a lotion, your pheromones
hibernate in my skin
The
honey, the
garlic, the
rhubarb, the
Japanese beer, the
Irish butter
It all remains without you
It is paralyzing
It is witchcraft
Crisis scrunches time
compartmentalizes it
Everything small is
so much
My evening’s end early, my
mornings open even earlier so, my
alone life a
trudge
But our shared love is
vigorous
The attentiveness, the
coziness, the
championing, the
lust, the
farts so
palpable
We are one hundred percent committed
to the architecture of us, of our
forecasted kingdom
Isolated, I
aerate my mania
the back of my eyelids synthesize
their muddy patterns with your aroma into
an ethereal you
Your braless body in that
peach dress
In the mystic soil
that is the air above me
my hands massage and shape
the soles of your feet like
bricks of adobe
Every evening’s early end
bringing us closer to
making a moat of southerner sweat
around the bed
closer to
christening our castle.
Venmo is @spencermirabal
Photography by Thomas Allison
Design by Chris De La Garza
Spencer Mirabal is poet and filmmaker based in Austin, Texas. His debut chapbook "Sweet Sad Sandal Boy" was published in 2019 by Lit City Press. Other semi-artistic activities include meticulously curating season playlists for his rabid 92 Spotify followers and tirelessly adjusting his fantasy basketball lineup.