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“Establishing Shot”, “Abjection”, “The Oracle”, “Nine of Swords”...by Joey Gould

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.




Joey Gould, a non-binary writing tutor, is the author of The Acute Avian Heart (Lily Poetry, 2019) & Penitent > Arbiter (2022, Lily Poetry). They perform in the Boston cast of PSNY's Poetry Brothel & have spent ten years facilitating live events across the Northeast, including The Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Joey's work is featured in Moonchild, Miniskirt, Memoir Mixtapes, & many journals that don't start with the letter M, too.


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