gamblers in august

Hello!

i seem to remember you counting
every crack in the motel wall like your life
depended on it, a good luck ritual
that only tasted sweet when swearing
you knew what to do if the roof caved in.

I really like this image of someone counting the cracks as a way of convincing themselves they have control over what might happen. It gives me a good sense of anxiety without directly naming it. "Only tasted sweet when swearing" is a little harder for me to follow, though, because I'm not entirely sure what part of the ritual is supposed to taste sweet. I think the idea is that the reassurance only works when this person insists they have a plan, but the metaphor becomes slightly muddled between counting, taste and the roof collapsing.

i was busy dreaming of the room flooding,
us floating up to the ceiling, only to wake
to the air being drier than the promise
i gave my mother when i said i'd be home
in march.

I love these lines! The imagined flooding contrasts really nicely with the dry air and the landscape we see later, and "drier than the promise" is a strong way of telling me that the narrator never went home without explaining exactly why. I also like the tenderness of imagining the two of them floating together rather than drowning.

remember the summer when we both begged
the sky for rain and only found a riverbed
we weren't whole enough to fill on our own,
but dug our graves in anyway?

There are some lovely ideas here, particularly the empty riverbed representing something the pair of them couldn't repair or fill together. I stumbled slightly over "dug our graves in," though. I think people would more naturally dig graves in the riverbed or dig themselves into the ground, so the wording feels unfinished. It may be intentional, especially as the poem is quite dreamlike in that sense, but it drew my attention to the sentence construction rather than the image itself. I am not sure about that!

i must have had plans to be buried far from here—
i guess you must have always intended for it.

I love the first line and the sense that the narrator once imagined escaping this place, even if death was the only future they could picture. The final line is interesting but a little ambiguous, though. I'm not sure whether "it" means being buried here, the narrator's death or the other person abandoning them to the landscape.

***

I enjoyed this poem a lot! I like that California isn't presented as glamorous or freeing, like most media, and instead is seen as somewhere that has caught the pair lying to themselves and now expects payment.

The relationship between the two people also comes through well despite me not knowing exactly who they are to each other. I like the vagueness! They seem united by fear and by the idea of escape, but neither of them is capable of saving the other. The narrator dreams of them rising together while the other person prepares for the ceiling to collapse, which gives them different reactions to the same danger. I think that shows how relationships, romantic or not, require some sense of compromise.

Though, I do think you could develop more of the images. The ritual, for instance, could have been elaborated on more. I do think your imagery elsewhere is very strong, though! The ending lines of burial among the red rocks are suitably very bleak.

Cheers! Thanks for sharing!

Lipton

I love the control of drought and water imagery throughout the poem; it really gives the poem a spine and makes it flow like a body of water. It's a truly beautiful poem that really trusts its central metaphor and works with it.
This line particularly is gut-wrenching:

i’m still someone’s daughter
but i’ve never been very good at it.

And this line just has an amazing rhythm, like the ebb and flow of a river or lake, or the waves against the shore, the wordplay just seems to natural and doesn't feel forced like some poetry can

you're calling it now, i'm calling it what it is,
california's calling our bluff and collecting her debts

I think the shift between the domestic and motel imagery to the desert and red rock landscape is a little abrupt, and maybe weaving in another line about water could 'bridge' that gap? It's a very small nitpick, and I see the idea that there is a drought now and there is red rock and no water, so it still works, but could flow a little better. I also felt the last line didn't feel as impactful as some that came before it. 'everything dying' is quite generic compared to the specific imagery given throughout the rest of the poem, so maybe a line about what 'everything' is could bridge the gap.

Overall, a beautiful poem. You have a true way with words that I am jealous of!