Fine Lines & Other Poems
fine lines
animal birth is different here, more
oily. street cats drip off the backs
of strange letters, mew in sirens, skin tires
in the rain, we realize which parts are made
of bone and which will just keep breaking
until we notice. i lost
my words once, but my mouth
was still pretty, so i never saw
men become headless
before me, button their voices
into the folds of their necks
ball their pickled spines like lint
between graveyards in their pockets. wilting,
there is a warning that used to be a woman
her paw is torn and she’s being hunted
by lessons that used to be men
on the corner, a bus opens its doors and
soda-pop laughter fizzles into gravel
hurry! she howls to the children
shove it in your pockets
before it’s too late,
sear it in your bones.
at least i brought dessert
“a weak ego you are not,” he says like
i am naked and bleeding, ripe
atop his third wife’s manicure
not just breathing, as i am
beside grown men talking
“i mean, you’re not lacking
in confidence.” //
we quarter ourselves,
survivors of experiments
in history, science, and the mathematics of how we will never be
enough. “lacking
in confidence” is the stuff
of feeding tubes and tombstones.
i am still above ground. //
before the room has time to yawn
the white man in the corner
is talking about the time he met the Dalai Lama
at a karate tournament, and how even
the Buddhists are capitalists. //
what a refreshing perspective
from a surgeon nursing a Coke can,
“i mean, you’re not lacking
in volume.” //
a slideshow creeps up the stairs,
unzips pixels from the carpet —
a family trip to Italy, stuffed
between beer and a cheese plate. all night,
father and son debate
whether the figure in Brunelleschi's painting
is a self- portrait or the likeness
of a homeless man. //
i don’t correct them, i revel
in the quiet joke, the mispronunciation: Brune-ell-es-SHE
as some subconscious feminist commentary, SHE
the satisfaction of what happens
when people like me, women
with egos of presidents, the audacity
of our abusers, hunger that gnaws through the webbing
of a Coke can, breathe above ground and
let the grown men talk.
young lady
jeans rip in the backyard, an accident at first
we left our jackets under cover — too warm
inside, lady mantis picks her corpse groom’s brain
cupping the edges of wet sleeves, two blocks away
i run to my mother, sweat. drool. skin. frayed
denim in my teeth like stringed mango
do you want a snack? she asks and i calculate
how much i can eat before heaving
wet mulch and pink worms and manure, out back
we call it manhunt and laugh like it’s a game, pretend
the birds nests won’t catch fire and
fruit will settle our stomachs and
bleach won’t burn, and
i will hardly dream of them.
blm
the last time i stepped out
of the shade without sunscreen, nothing
happened or so i thought until
later that night i saw on the news
that someone’s father had been shot for stepping
into the sun without my skin
and the voice of my mother is clinging
to the dripping side of the floorboards, is bleeding
through scabs in the drums, it says
not to leave the house without at least SPF 15
on my lips because cancer can happen anywhere
and start at anytime, because life as we know it
ends when we least expect an ending
and she is right, but we are talking
about the wrong type of cancer.
difference
is he, do you think
watching us?
the creature inside
that man
crouched behind grief and the paper
and the lie
that God
is everywhere but in difference
but in that breath
between dreaming and skeletons
wet gum
under the seat
he drops a page and
we all
look away, we all
are dropping pages we don’t
have time
to pick up, even in the face of
this man
whose eyes look more like milk
every stop
every door-open and crowd-shift
while he
is leaking, and i
look away
but Sunday
when he decides too much is missing
finally
i will wish i had been different
regret
bites and i will wish i had
expanded
instead of tightened
cried
before slipping off the sweaty L
look
there is a man who wants to die
there is a man who can help us
hand-rolled
i am shaved-my-legs-just-in-case
smooth and
you are razor’s-edge-bag-of-knives
slice me
with rice paper and teach me words i’ll never use like
straw
in colombian spanish or
i love you
in any language that waters
web-weavers
like me, spinning
lies
with what we are given, you are
what’s left
and you are forgotten
next week
probably, but try anyway
won’t you?
cut me deep enough
make me remember
what todo tastes like
Contributors
Josephine Blair
Josephine Blair is a Miami-based writer and activist. She is the girl wishing for snow and reading dystopian fiction on the beach. Her poetry can be found in Meniscus Literary Journal, Twyckenham Notes, Soliloquies Anthology, and elsewhere.
Addyson Santese
Addyson Santese is a 23-year-old fiction writer and graduate student in the MFA program at Northern Arizona University. She currently lives in Flagstaff, Arizona and often returns home to Durango, Colorado, where she enjoys hiking, camping, and developing her nature photography skills.