POETRY

By Brit­tany Adames

On the modular couch, the fingers splays

against the curve of a col­lar­bone, television

flick­ers in a mea­sured motion. We have

mirac­u­lous­ly invent­ed the clatter, the

per­for­mance and the self-rule, the ghost

of a pot that hasn’t hit the stove

quite yet. I wish sadness stayed in

the place you left it. How does it feel

to be big? This is not mechan­i­cal. Every

groove in this blood­less body is a syllable

to be lauded, at least once. What I mean is

that even when everything’s godless the air

itself seems to take the form of something

that I would know as beau­ti­ful. I like how

you say my name. Like a griev­ance. Like a

wetness that never sticks. The chick­ens in cages

only know deft­ness from a blade to the throat.

Here is where we cat­a­logue danger: the peeling

of the tooth, the stove­top kettle steam­ing in a

way that almost feels real, the manner of half-

truths, the bed tes­ti­fy­ing to its own undoing,

the gringo spit­ting into the dirt, the plantain

mashed by the pestle, the kiss—mi dios— the kiss, the

orchids them­selves making color

out of chaos. Back in the Domini­can Repub­lic, our

palms greened by the crack of the limoncillo,

my father belts out into song and for a moment,

I can look him in the eye again. That’s the way to do it.

To recal­i­brate lan­guage one has to sugar it first. To-

ngue it. Let me know how it tastes, how it roves,

how it smoothes. It tastes sweet, doesn’t it? The

reck­on­ing comes first, then. The blood­shed, then

the loving of a woman, a dis­ap­pear­ing myth, my

mother asking which man am I devour­ing now?

I pray the urgency makes itself known. I pray for

estrange. The pos­si­bil­i­ty beyond death, beyond

the ongoing body, beyond your hair wound

around my finger, the intent hang of lips.

This story orig­i­nal­ly appeared in Stonecoast Review Issue 17.

Photo by Nelson Ndongala