a tale of several beautifuls

Thank you to Craig Scott, publisher of Luciferous for publishing my poem, a tale of several beautifuls:

Blame it on symmetry.

How near are her eyes to carefully constructed bridge of nose. Does she starve. Are her hips like the horizon, without fault or curve. Is her skin more mocha than medium rare. What blooms in the months outside of spring or autumn and when the leaves go away, how sturdy are the branches. Does your grass wilt or does it arrive like green erections plunged out of earth’s pores.

Blame it on what distracts us. Call it brushed air. Call it removed particles of mistake.

Her smile is white and heterosexual. His hair is without recede. That home is window’d and gorgeous due to its skylights and built-in 401K plan. Does her cellulite show. Does your health plan cover the creams you will need to rub it away. What is your routine. How many chemicals have attempted to peel away your skin; I think you might be beautiful under that fifth layer. Keep ripping at yourself. Scoop out and where there is tunnel, there is possibility for better.

Blame it on tents and drawers and the tenacity of lies. Collocate implant withimbalance.

Remove your girdle now. Help the redheaded dancer with her zipper and linger your looks at the way she folds like love letters. Quietly ask if you can dance your language into the cleavage of her mind. And the other one with painted eyebrows, thicker than the remorse from your 20s. She is beautiful too. And that graffiti’d church that might be a bank now or was but has become a collaborative celebration of dripped paint now. And her nipples. And that cloud that kind of looks like your best friend from tenth grade. And that fence, painted turquoise. And your neck. And that meal you fed me when my palms were too tired to lift and curl. And that Wednesday you fell asleep inside me. And that rooftop garden. And the smell of patchouli you snuck inside magazine. And your sodium. And my blood. And that too.

 

 

neptune

*****

On the 4 train, the cold air pounds away the sweat rummaging each fold and flap of my body. I fall asleep in drips. I realize that exhaustion has become like another bruise on my arm: purple. heavy. persistent in its spread. A well-dressed black man in pinstripes and electronic book on lap reads my shoulder. He tells me I am deep. Or, my skin is. We talk about restrictions and the ways in which we are forced out of our bodies by men with an agenda for our construction sites.                 (I am paraphrasing.) 

He says: Who has the right to another’s vagina but you? I have a daughter, he announces. I need to be aware of what can be fought away from her.

*****

 

I almost obtained a male analyst.

I almost moved in with a man who loved the way my breath tasted.

I almost ate that banana today from the farm stand in Queens, until I remembered that two months ago, I bought some strawberries that may have given me chapped lips and a questionable rash, so instead I fed it to the mouth of garbage can on subway platform.

I almost quit my job again.

I almost bought a ticket to Minnesota to live with a Rebel in a yurt.

I almost removed all the particles of what I once was to find the gravity beneath.

****

We get off at the same stop and I wish him a good night as I travel from underground toward the evening summer steam. I haven’t seen the moon in days, though two nights ago I left the nudity of my bedroom to walk inside the tap-dancing rain to search for what I once was. I only got to the end of the block, then turned around.

 

***

I failed mathematics sophomore year of high school from forty-two absences and never reached the level of calculus. Even the quadratic equation cannot guide me to understand the pattern and comparable weight of mosquito bites on my limbs. They favor my right leg: thigh, calf, ankle. How flavorful is the fur that erodes me.

***

Before man read my body on Brooklyn bound subway, I digested a pint of poetry in east village bar full of music makers and spoken words. Briefly fell in love with a singer whose armpits had shadows like mine. Before I left, I kissed a human whose hunger for Canada will soon take her there. I sung my way toward E. 14th.

***

 

I call this callus: Neptune.

*****

Upon realizing the strength of my backstory, I swept up my curls and climbed them onto the highest peak of my skull. Curved my back into a cape. No one can see me, I thought. Then, I hummed apologies until my throat collapsed like a poorly constructed bridge and that man who noticed the book implanted in my skin will tell his daughter that bodies should never be censored, nor evenings nor love nor magic……..

 

a tale of several beautifuls

Blame it on symmetry. How near are her eyes to carefully constructed bridge of nose. Does she starve. Are her hips like the horizon, without fault or curve. Is her skin more mocha than medium rare. What blooms in the months outside of spring or autumn and when the leaves go away, how sturdy are the branches. Does your grass wilt or does it arrive like green erections plunged out of earth’s pores. Blame it on what distracts us. Call it brushed air. Call it removed particles of mistake. Her smile is white and heterosexual. His hair is without recede. That home is window’d and gorgeous due to its skylights and built-in 401K plan. Does her cellulite show. Does your health plan cover the creams you will need to rub it away. What is your routine. How many chemicals have attempted to peel away your skin; I think you might be beautiful under that fifth layer. Keep ripping at yourself. Scoop out and where there is tunnel, there is possibility for better. Blame it on tents and drawers and the tenacity of lies. Collocate implant with imbalance. Remove your girdle now. Help the redheaded dancer with her zipper and linger your looks at the way she folds like love letters. Quietly ask if you can dance your language into the cleavage of her mind. And the other one with painted eyebrows, thicker than the remorse from your 20’s. She is beautiful too. And that graffiti’d church that might be a bank now or was but has become a collaborative celebration of dripped paint now. And her nipples. And that cloud that kind of looks like your best friend from tenth grade. And that fence, painted turquoise. And your neck. And that meal you fed me when my palms were too tired to lift and curl. And that Wednesday you fell asleep inside me. And that rooftop garden. And the smell of patchouli you snuck inside magazine. And your sodium. And my blood. And that too.

you are yellow like that dandelion

I think you’re okay with your dandelion yellow braids that measure in miles down your back and huddled over your shoulders. I tried not to let you notice me counting them so I lost track at thirty.

I think you’re okay because while your friends were judging another because her teeth are too crooked and her weave is wicked, you said:

Why do you have to be so mean?

And before you spoke, I watched your mouth. Your lips moving in and out, popping breaths, waiting for the right moment to cut them up with your question.

Weeks earlier, I was sitting across from two young girls on the 3 train and I could hear them whispering about me. Without letting them notice me notice them, I could hear bits and pieces of their judgements. My hair (kind of frizzy. weird color). My jacket (all ripped up). My face (ugly).

But you: yellow dandelion braids and large green sweater knitted past your knees…
you made an effort to question the need for meanness.

Why must we notice the stains in someone’s shirt before the vibrant color wrapped around that smudge?

Why must we focus on someone’s weight (too fat/ too thin) when we have no idea the history of their skin and bones and health and need to be or hesitance to be that way?

Why must we be so afraid of the man on the bus who screams out words when maybe this is the only time in his day when he feels listened to?

You with your yellow dandelion braids twisted into your scalp like a tapestry…
I will not judge you for pronouncing the “t” in listen, if you look beyond my crookedness and knotty, stained demeanor.

Because I also notice how eloquent you are.
And if you gave me just a moment, you might notice the same in me.

you are beautiful, like a double windsor

I want to notice the ones who go unnoticed.

Three days ago, a human, with lips like Saturn’s rings, taught me how to tie a perfectly eloquent double windsor knot on a necktie. The following day, I sunk my legs inside black pants; covered my torso in button-down striped shirt; put on my favorite vest; then, grabbed hold of striped red tie and began my first solo attempt.

For me, neckties replace necklaces. (The Payless version of) combat boots or converse replace high heels or fancy female shoes that make a clicking sound when making contact with the ground.

As I huddle onto the 2 or 5 train for an hour in the morning, I am able to notice the various creatures sharing my morning commute.

I am confident in this moment of tie-bearing. And I wonder how many of us with disorganized scowls so early in the morning feel like we are dressing in the way we truly want to be….

* * *

At a poetry reading featuring transfeminists, the room is full with blurred genders. I hone my mathematics skills as I count the partially-shaved heads, three-month-old buzz cuts, faux hawks (not as many as once before), and one redhead with wide-angled ears, small lips and a remarkable double-windsor.

There are also humans with long hair, some in dresses, and I wonder if they feel as noticed as the others. Or, are we really noticing each other or just comparing our levels of queerness in competitive glances.

My queer rhetoric is spotty, full of several holes, still being stitched and fondled into something more substantial or visible. It is often during these days when my body feels like a warzone (translation: menstruation) that I am angered by my parts. I want to rebel against the hushed red discharge.

Maybe I want someone to call me sir during this time to combat the flagrant fragrant woman in me.

Maybe I just want someone to go up to me and tell me how remarkable my tie is and follow that up by saying:

You are handsome…like a double windsor.

how eloquent is beautiful

I find myself swollen from thoughts of beauty:
what is beautiful/ how to define the identity of this world and its stain on bodies.

Wednesday:
Sunburnt man on Flatbush and Fulton does sit-ups on a folded blanket and I watch his abdomen form into six-pack containers.

The need for flattened stomach goes beyond gender and home consumption.

Thursday:
As I wait for 3 train at Nostrand station, notice a young woman with pulled back hair rising from either side of her head like brunette fireworks. She is covering up her face with cover-up. 3 train arrives; we sit diagonally from each other and I watch. Several shades of grey eye shadow layering onto eyelids and thick swabs of ink called mascara to lashes and more shadow to eyes, a liner now. Lipstick, three layers and colors and notice that they shine now.

What hides beneath all these sheets of wax and powders and glitter?

Are we actually hiding out beauty or just coloring it in?

This morning, I close my eyes and find my body. Music pours out of cylinder-shaped speaker box and I think about bursting bubbles with my body. There is a Dancer beside me, far enough to hear but not feel. She tells me to choose a part of the body to notice. Eyes closed, I lift my right arm. It pretends it is in water. It pretends it is newly born. It pretends it is smooth.

I turn and turn and turn and turn and turn and turn and fall. I wash the black padded floor with my skin.

Notice your ribs, she says.

I finger them. They start to shift toward the left, then right. My hips grow jealous; they get involved too. Perhaps there is a kick and another turn. A collapse, then rise.

(I think) I am dancing.

She wants to see my text; this is far more comfortable than my body.

We talk about beautiful.
I tell her I used to live in a city where bodies were like robots, hard and mechanical. Thin. Uniformed.

I want to become fluent in the language of my body, so I can speak faster and fondle the eroticism of articulation.

(this is a process/ beyond single night performance/ this is a movement)

speak your voice, pirate

I could be on the top of this earth, testing the width of my thigh span. Perhaps my right leg grazes Colorado and left leans against Missouri. When a body sits on an airplane, pressed between window’d seat and neurotic woman studying the “idiot’s guide to buying a home”, one may notice how square everything is down below.

There are perfect right angles and circles and everything is fifty shades of brown.

In this moment, I am so close to first class I can touch the curtain separating our economic differences and breathe in their high-thread-count-upholstered seats.

How many times have I fallen in love this past week? Safe love. The kind of love that needs no explanation or physical representation. The kind of love that remains in silence.

1. miso ground into a dressing over arugula salad with edamame and beets.

2. the lizard doing push-ups on Anne U White trail in Boulder. Even this tiny creature contemplates it’s own arm strength abilities– this is simultaneously sad and charming.

3. a young boy on his way toward second year of life and all the reminders of how two moms are so much better than one.

4. an attraction between cross-genre genders/ slur of denim’d hips and mutual vests on opposite chests/ eyes greener than sun-soaked moss/ a lick of lips as though preparing them for mine/ teeth large enough to bite into my language/ a flirt/ a missed connection/

5. everyone is trying to flatten themselves away! My stomach refuses to section off into six separate packs. Instead, I channel these mountains, which are far sexier in their curves than the flat screen door pushed close to get here.

6. boy raises money to remove breasts and I am in awe of his awareness of body. What gets to stay and what impostors must go? I’m still taking inventory of this body.

7. the couple who collide due to persistent photographer with bones made of magic fairy dust, sparkling beyond manufactured flash. The ways in which love can be seen, can be pressed, can cohabitate. I want to copyright the three beautiful versions of love I got to gaze upon in order to find some of my own.

8. that deer.

9. that cafe au lait with soy milk slinking down my throat and pressing me into wide awake-ness.

10. and what if I were to mention hym again? A mouth traveling miles before the first word emerges. Engaging in topics like coffee and hormones, and stimulants like caffeine and boners. I should have asked about preferred pronoun, so I’d know the proper way to press gendered human into this poem.

11. miles. voices. lawns. gardens. drag kings. poets. and a pirate that somehow lives inside all of us because we are all just choosing our own adventure within the shapes and colors and dialects around us.

if this is dying i am ready to live

When you posed/ with screams held open by upper and bottom lip/ did you know you’d be
jumping

How skinny was your grey and white mind, tilted
corner peeled
pressed into insignificant frame
&
gathered for Guggenheim possession

You were so desperate for moon, you dipped fingerprints in acid
&
burned one onto a building

francesca woodman

[where did the pain come from]

In Boulder, Colorado you broke into backyards
stole clothespin off laundry lines and dug them between
folds of your belly nipples ribcage

Francesca, you left all your body hair alone
[like me]
and your loneliness pushed you closer to art but
further from others
[me too]

You had a fondness for geometrics and mammaries

francesca woodman

And I have fallen in love with your right breast, perhaps
because it has been upstaged by your left.

And the trees
thin and long like you

In New Hampshire, you hide with stones and forest
align feminine to outdoor breathing

/

In Rome, you hung from door frames
haunted exits
reflected angels into puddles of gravel and dust

hid from calla lily too large
to approach
for inhale

how to find metaphor in my belly folds

I can call it wavy like my hair right now, pushed into ponytail to control the mess of knots.

I can call it lumpy like gravel road leading toward mountaintop.

Should I call it sloppy?

{now I’m judging it}

I keep talking about bodies.

White male professor suggests I choose something else to ruminate on.

enough already

But perhaps I keep preaching until I get it right.
I haven’t gotten it right, so I continue.

*
Woman touches my stomach while bloating my mouth with her tongue. I flinch, suck in, cannot relax now.

Woman wants me on top of her, wants me to straddle her hipbone.

How does my belly look to her, I think.

How can I choreograph my body to look its best at all times?

What is (its) best?

I remove my shirt.

I am left with bra and tattoos.

I remove my bra.

I am left with sweat and hair.

I wipe away the sweat.

I am left with skin.

photo by Francesca Woodman

*
I think back to moments when I felt most beautiful.

Several summers ago, canoe trip in Western BC, Canada. Watching my body grow strong with each stroke. Dancing naked beneath the sun and moon, while pup trampled land that felt deserted and discovered.

Having my scars traced and kissed by a woman and sharing stories of how each one got there.

That time on that stage when I announced who I was and allowed my nudity to be an understudy to the language that announced it.

When she noticed the hair beneath my arms and asked if she could kiss me there.

I feel beautiful when I don’t apologize away my flaws.

My body is an animal feasting on weather patterns and love and sadness and my body is an emotional landscape of splattered paint. My body is a Rorschach and it’s OK if we all see it differently.

My body is meant to be (re)interpreted and (re)translated and (re)minded everyday that it is meant to fold and flap and creak and stretch and feel excessive at times.

Yes.

My body can be excessive. In its hunger demands. In the ways in which it wants sex. In the ways it demands to be touched or ignored or pressed against.

So, I scream out toward the west and see how far my vocals get. Wonder about all this obsession toward smoothness and flatness and thinness. I am going to keep this extra five pounds. I am going to allow this belly to be flimsy. I am going to turn around when you ask to see my bum and not hide the fact that cellulite gathers.

You can call me a tree.
With rings and ridges and splinters and rough spots and smelly parts and sap.

You can call me an elephant with curious skin.

You can even call me beautiful and I will try not to question it.

And I will try not to question it…..

determine the need for cross pollination

Bones. Fat. Veins. Scar. Scratch. Roots. Mother. Remnant. Scar. Flaw. Fat. Wrinkle. Liar. Homo. Thighs. Daughter. Hazel. Curls. Knots. Scar. Fat. Fondled. Wrinkle. Knuckles. Belly. Fat. Callus. Flaw. Hurt. Angry. Scar. Scar. Scar.

things to do
things to think
things to catalogue

perhaps an appointment must be made to regulate blood cycle
hair growth in hard to reach places
interruptive coughing sprees
and that lump

how fat is fat is fat so fat

photo by francesca woodman

when you notice my fat fat fat
fondle it
suck out its glycerine and
use as lubricant

(oh)

it is spring now and trees end their monthly rotation of nudity in honor of yellow leaves, sap and wind