To celebrate National Poetry Month, we’ll be sharing a poem a week from our archives. The following poem, “We Californians” by Meg Hurtado Bloom, is from our recent Bay Area Issue. You can read more poetry from Meg Hurtado Bloom in the issue itself, which is currently available from our Store.

We never admit we have a problem.

We compress. We knead. We withdraw toxins.

Sun-blind and blond-hearted,

we hang around Valhalla,

keeping old warriors alive.

It’s all super-casual. Our host,

the spectral Spanish king—

whose every vein burned blue as winter wind,

who left us names for every hillside—

has betrothed us to the Coast. Her beauty

keeps our tempers cool as gold

forgotten in a sea cave.

We trade treasures for mirage, mirage for treasure.

We kill our captors, mindfully, and move on,

knowing we have nothing:

just one wave and then another,

then another. Maybe rain.

Admittedly, we pay too much attention to the stars,

knowing ourselves future smithereens,

space dust in progress.

Love ends up on the cutting room floor,

but so does evil. So does madness. So does night.

Meg Hurtado Bloom is the editor at Hologram Press and lives in San Francisco. You can read more of her work in the Bay Area Issue.