Exquisite Corpse as Breaking Down
The first one came after Gram’s diagnosis / I snagged my running shoes / a turkey tail jutted from my left ankle / I shoved my foot in anyways / I ran past carolers / I ran on a full stomach / I ran past swarms of twinkle lights & motor oil hot chocolate in styrofoam cups / I took a cold shower / nothing happened / Gram got 4 small tattoos on her chest / to constellate the nerves to navigate the doctors / I think I brought her flowers / we made her pizza on grocery store bread / we drank wine mid-day / my uvula a cremini suddenly undulating when I swallowed / I worked so hard / I swept my little cafe / flirted with the chef / I didn’t sit down for days / everything teeming with vegetable oil / Gram had mini strokes & spoke in crocuses / I was riddled to my wrists with black trumpets wood blewitt, maitake in my armpits / I hid under LL Bean coats / My skin began to dry / the mushrooms glut for my moisture / Gram cooked me sausage & peppers after finishing chemo / We laughed over paper plates / Her gold tooth showed / Here she was, yellow as porcelain & petaling / Here I was, lion’s mane for lower lashes / Drinking gin & flat soda / The flies haunting my apartment / Somehow I meet a wonderful man / I wear open-toed shoes / He can see my white button, coiling shiitake / Gram teaches us how to make her pizzelles / batter on a bony finger / orange zest & anise seed / We come ready with melon for her / She teaches us how to jitterbug / Morels gasping in my ribcage when we step / I run when I get home / I keep going / Water leaves me like a bad lover / In bed beside my sweetheart last week / I dreamt Grampa came back / My brain & its reishi fire escapes / Inventing mannerisms from before his Dementia / Grampa coming to the kitchen to dance / To take Gram with him / Today, Gram is in the hospital / I swear / I can feel the chanterelles behind my eyeballs / But I have to make coffee & gossip with co-workers & move my chair out of the sun / I look down at this page / Soil falls from my nostrils / It is morning / & we are wet with it
Before Complexity, There Was The Way They Echoed Each Other's Laughter Like Bleachers Underfoot
The madonna & the whore were daisy scouts first, then sophomores in high school. The madonna used to nibble off the PB & fluff crusts for the whore in the cafeteria. Once, before the madonna’s field hockey game, the whore convinced every blade of glass on the field to sing the school anthem in the fat of her palms. The two were noble then. Glowing like Sprite cans. One day the whore brought weed up to the madonna’s bunk bed & when they kissed, the madonna could smell the magnolias between her legs. Her forehead shined like rhododendron. The bedroom walls at their heads met in a parenthetical of peach paint. Afterwards, the whore, whose name was Jenny, asked Why does everyone keep calling me a bimbo? Jenny’s fingerpads drummed like wishing well coins on the madonna’s surface. You’re beautiful, the madonna answered. I want to be heard, not rumored into beauty. The madonna said nothing, kissed the Venn Diagram of Jenny’s eyelids, which were soft. What was the difference between predetermined and predestined? Jenny was already pulling up her socks & soon they were two stones in the sun in the driveway. Do you think ideals of beauty will change with climate change? The madonna asked, letting a rolly polly frill her finger. Jenny looked at the curb of her armpit. The madonna smelled like soil & amusement park metal. In Jenny’s belly bucked a raucous dandelion. The votive of the sun flickered with sour spells. Each one of her fingers– a simple match.
Reading Note:
Lately Kristeva's Abject Theory (but also my friends and mentors' notes about Kristeva's abject theory), K-Ming Chang's Gods of Want, revisiting Carmen Maria Machado and realizing how much she has informed my work, always studying Japanese Breakfast's Jubilee as a sacred text, Meander Spiral Explode by Jane Alison
