By: S.K. Brownell
Plans
He says he does not know what comes next
but we are always saying that.
In conversation, lulls are filled with impression
—that is, need to impress.
He says let’s not have plans or hopes
they only get us disappointed.
I say desire is worth more to me than risk.
He says we never did pronouns but no,
they were always in the air.
The first time we met, I told him I was everything.
He wasn’t listening closely enough yet.
He was still speaking convenience, to convince.
He says we never did pronouns but
we did.
He says he does not know what comes next
with a woman as if I would be different
if I were a man. Bodies fit with bodies or they don’t.
Every night his hands are frantic, making plans and
cupcakes—we need something to do after all.
We cannot lie in bed and stare
each other in the face, strip off
what is not us and lay bare, dripping
anxious for a kiss or touch and
I have the sense he is afraid of me
as if me is what he can see.
Still he says, let us not have plans
they only lead to definitions.
He says he does not know what comes next
or rather he shows it when I bring the conversation
round again, round like the earth and the moon and
my body, which he is still staring at, perplexed.
The sense that I am missing something, long and fleshy,
cradled in my arms like a child that is not a child,
held up like a lion on a mountain top, pride and prince,
is now not only in me but in him.
We go out and we do not have plans.
He says let us not declare or display
affection or any other form of nearness.
I know he is fearing it will erase him,
and fearing, he erases me.
He says he does not know what comes next
and why is it always boys who say that?
What part of me is drawn to certainty because all of me
is uncertain, a wavering that cannot declare or
defend, desire, an absence that is both too much and
too little, spreading toward the center of the earth.
I am a soft, slow animal, again receding.
He is a soft, slow animal in a pen.
What is opening between us is this:
What he has defined, he is bound to disappoint.
What I define, I too deeply defend.
How to Navigate in Three Dimensions
He says my legs are tired of being legs. And
I know what he means.
My legs are tired of muscles and fat.
My legs are tired of tendons.
My legs are tired of bone structures and patellae
and moving and moving and staying still.
My legs are tired of uphill and downhill but mostly uphill and uphill and mostly flat.
My legs imagined there was no such thing as the work week or a
destination and they
thought about painting and gave me
monkey toes and I am
dexterous.
My legs imagined they could swim and
had gills and
were fish and
knew how to navigate in three dimensions.
My legs imagined they teleported to Antarctica because they
know how to teleport and they
know about Antarctica and it
doesn't make them cold.
My legs are talented.
My legs are tired of being legs.
He says: Me too.
Second Spine
Humuhumunukunukuapua’a
1.
it became a game they could play
who could speak the syllables fastest
of languages not meant for sound
after dinner they sit on the pier
naming names and speaking in tongues
she sits on sand stuck in swimsuits
at least there is a breeze here
the name is longer than the fish
and her name is longer than her body
latinate and plump
underneath dun eyebrows
her mother tells her God is real
she does not argue
2.
rocks don’t wilt, they fragment
like memories and hard disks
her invertebrate mother
digs under
silt under soil under
sand in her swimsuit
the sediment of a life
the way to make stones sparkle is to crush them
and daughters too
3.
she should have been a shelter
she is moved by nothing
obstinate to water, wind, and glaciers
her inveterate mother who feeds
on things below the surface
the bottom of the body
benthic, she locks herself in place
4.
rhinecanthus rectangulus
is often found solitary
particularly in captivity
5.
she imagines that the night is like the ocean
that humans go around with lanterns in their heads
a starfish disintegrates
an angelfish changes sex
a wormfish digs its grave and waves
goodbye and will we ever
have our own names
6.
triggers have the remarkable ability
to rapidly alter their coloration
she is in sepia
demonstrating submission
she will be of nature, prismatic
healthy and unthreatened
7.
searching she is
searching the sediment
for edible detritus
to keep her alive
she is eating her
invertebrate mother
she is not a shelter
she is a predator
her mother prays
in a classic way
she has tried
kneeling, clasping
singing, nothing
works
searching she is
searching the firmament
for textual referents
to keep her alive
8.
humuhumu they call it
when they’re not playing games
of course, she never calls it that
what can be known
of weathering and erosion
is already known
what can be tolerated
of conspecific women
has already been tolerated
human human
her hypoxic heart beats
she is subsisting on debris
not god or fish
S.K. Brownell is a writer, artist, and educator from the Midwest. Their poetry, prose, and drama have appeared or are forthcoming in Crab Fat Magazine, Seven CirclePress, Punt Volat, Decoded: Pride Anthology, Crack the Spine, formercactus, and elsewhere. They are a 2018 Sewanee Conference Tennessee Williams Scholar and winner of the 2015 National Partners of the American Theatre Playwriting Excellence Award. They hold an MFA from Boston University, teach writing at GrubStreet, and create with Artists' Theater of Boston. More at skbrownell.com.