Establishing Shot
[the camera glares up in circles
& cuts away to somebody crying,
washing up without their glasses on.
Their sink near a window
with a bird feeder
unforgivable birds
every poem’s pretentious gaze
at that window
as the sink gurgles & sputters
hot tap & purple nitrile
the day after throwing dirt
on their love’s plain pine
somebody is washing up
after Shiva: they say
the first bird you see is your fate
they’re superstitious
as a distraction
or succor, & it’s a nuthatch
on the side of the pine tree
& that’s unfair
how could they be a nuthatch
when they laugh
& the nuthatch laughs too
arrogant in its tree
the story flickers in its beak]
ABJECTION
after “Stillness in Woe” by Purity Ring
In the back shed place of dust vials
someone holds an axe
to his chest enough to draw
blood less gentle than she’d hoped
but breaking the skin impels clarity
so you’re welcome. Imagine a dusk
pervasive, world-ending
no-wind still, where she’s unmade
from the spools & belay loops
of the society of men. Unrigged
haunted ship! they say, used to
being dull in remove. Not this alone.
Meet her in a snowglobe moment
worthy of her keep—build pillow forts
but metal, but dangerous & weighted.
He’s right to be afraid of her whetting.
Blue bed kingdom, cloudy sea glass
disorient him. He waits the storm out
in a wind-harangued tent, island-bound
under an anvil sea-fed thunderhead.
Dare he cross the sparse-grassed field
to the toolshed? Run to her now.
The Oracle
Poindexter on a Friday afternoon knocking on the boss’s office: hey
there was a manufacturing defect in the heart. I’d like you to pity me
my body. I always had abject panic to fall back on. Replace wisteria-wound rail
with iron portcullis—that’s when I feel alive. When I notch another survival
on God’s old yearbook, sign in the corner with harsh words. I love
you I do now please lambaste my little figurine. You almost caught me
saying wee fetish. You almost thought I cared.
9 of Swords
I love lying so I wrote a book called “I Will Not Stab My Own Self
with All These Knives”. I denied whispering the desiccation hex
& then said I’m Fine when the wasting came. It was my wasting.
Look here at my perfect set of porcelain wounds: a little ribcage
sticking out, a bit of blood, a general chipping around the eyes.
Tell me I’m a poor, sick child. Pick me up.
Boy?Girl Goes to the Movies
Boy I am a girl I am a sojourner here
in a land of gendered bathrooms
as far as the eye—
>>>
I craved certainty, plausibility. I
could pass & that came with dope
concierge service but boring clothes.
My mother bought cream eggs &
she asked me, do you feel
like a girl? I didn’t know how to answer
but drew her into an overlong hug.
>>>
The moment when Grant says AMPHIBIAN DNA
>>>
I know I avoided
more of the locker-slamming & circling
bikes the teachers who deliberately
deadname but the boys weren’t kind
behind the Mellon Street barn
& I wouldn’t have had the words
even if I wanted to tell them
I didn’t know how to ride
I didn’t know how to braid
I wasn’t any of what we knew
but I pled down to perjury
& cut in half by mean boys
>>>
my hair buzzed on one side
down to my other shoulder
in a purple turtleneck
before one of the Scream movies
taken by S— then I told her
if I was a girl I would want to—
& she was already trailing away.
>>>
this was after G—’s 2Q2BSTR8
makeovers & the queers are
sometimes not alright. There was
a power outage midwinter
when we lit candles & played
No Truth Just Dare. All that
made me feel dumb about feelings
>>>
I needed to be just a *little* repressed
like hey tongue-kissing
before a bunch of people get stabbed
admittedly sounds bad out of context
but I LOVE Junior Mints
& being forced to shut up
because otherwise I can’t remember to.
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