i destroy myself with a slow grind pressing my body against the bitter wheel at any sign of sharp success polishing away the burrs of hope and joy until i am pebble forgotten in the crush of boots
Passion
BY JOSEPH WILCOX
at easter brunch as we douse the bulge of egg casserole and sweetbread in our stomachs with fresh hot coffee like a post-coital cigarette my brother extolls the virtues of the stock market how he cheers the ups and downs as he buys low and his millions grow he pauses righteousness rising to rail at the cross of his tax burden the unconstitutional waste of government taking his money and the onus of minimum wage that shrouds his body corporate to my sister who earns $15 an hour retail
Factious
BY JOSEPH WILCOX
don’t you see? if we are fighting each other we are not fighting them if we are fighting each other we won’t go to the shed to find our pitchforks
would you like to borrow one of mine, friend?
Joseph Wilcox studied at the Jack Kerouac School, started a theater company, and raised a family in Colorado. He lives in Aurora where he writes science fiction and fantasy, and poetry in the sleepless hours of the night.
bristling old wool shorn and barbed from so much wear. knitted with cheap
yarn, the acrylic kind that tightens too much, squeaks after
time and so many washes. a thick polyester clinging to the body
odor of the great aunt who first wore it. a light chiffon scarf
draped, artful but nonchalant. a coat patched too obviously.
stinking of the mothballs from a long-untouched winter closet.
how you are sewn into it
how you drive around a town you have not lived in for fifteen years. the
streets so foreign for the first few days. you, without clear compass or
signpost. home, a place of now-unfamiliar intersections. until on the
third day you feel a strange tug. a too-tight stitch pulling beneath the
muscles in your chest. a breath caught in the button of your throat.
because you suddenly know these storefronts, just with different
names. because you remember the shape and weight of who still
patterns the pavement below. who forever married a part of you to
this neighborhood. whose cord has been knotted to yours all along. you
have driven frightfully close to where something terrible happened. until
now you forgot the event even took place in a house at all. it existing
all this time only in the unnamable space of your hazy recollections.
and the stains it collects, the memory
every time you put on the shirt, your eyes go right to the small spot of
redness. you know the exact meal you were eating. how you were sitting at
a not proper dining space. how the sauce splashed when the pot boiled
over. how her homemade jam was thinner and dripped more. when the
brown corduroy got that conspicuous patch of dried glue along the front
most thigh. the leaking pen. the accident. the accidental. that which
you pick at and sniff at and rub in and soak with hopes of it fading more.
how you wear it, but also, how you are woven of it
you sense the distinct tastes inside your mouth whenever you look at the
photo. it is almost unbelievable now, teaching kindergartners to cook.
trusting such small and wild hands with knives to chop the radishes, a hot
griddle to fry up tortillas. you made butter as a class, taking turns shaking
the mason jar of cream. the excited aggression you all stifled around pet gerbils
and younger siblings having found an escape. a riot of children given task
and purpose for their agitation. you hold a photo of this day, see your own
smile as you chew a bit of buttered bread. see how you once delighted
so in it. how delicious it could be, the violence of so many hands.
Jade Lascelles is a writer, editor, musician, and letterpress printer based in Boulder, Colorado. She is the author of the full-length collection The Invevitable (Gesture Press, 2021). Selections of her work have also appeared in numerous journals and the anthologies Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism and Precipice: Writing at the Edge, as well as being featured in the Ed Bowes film Gold Hill and the visual art exhibit and accompanying book Shame Radiant. Several of her poems were recently translated into Italian for the journal Le Voci della Luna. Beyond her writing endeavors, she is a longtime steward of the Harry Smith Print Shop at Naropa University, a core member of the art group The Wilds, and plays drums in a few different musical projects.
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
Body Autonomy sits next to M & I at a bar named Vesuvius. The kind of place people sit facing north, & maybe each other when the weather is right. Josie the bartender is chatting up a couple a few stools down, shows them a video of Johnny Marr playing a Clash cover to her in Los Angeles. “You are very magnetic,” M says. Josie free-pours silver tequila into cold glasses, says “I know.” Body asks for a remote to the tired TV, flips through channels, mumbles mention of the news headline, a mother pleading for assistance in finding her 17-year-old son, who left in the night to a city she can’t quite name or find on a map. “The heart leaves when we don’t make a home for it,” he whispers into his whiskey lemonade. I don’t feel the need to leave.
…
…..
M & I stop to stretch our legs in a tiny town named Big Sur but isn’t actually named Big Sur. A town of stasis, of pausing movement while inertia presses forward in form of rented RV & restless toddlers. A town built on trinkets & organic oils & overpriced rooms. I light a smoke, stretch— one in the same, these days— M snaps analog photos of flowers that sway palm tree green. Body walks by in overalls & combat boots, long blonde hair. She places time-worn lips together into red highway line, hums, “Yummmmmmmm. You don’t see enough people smoking these days.” Swings her bag of chips like a little sis as she continues seaside.
…
…….
My parents haven’t seen Body in years. Met them once at a corner on Baker Street. In aisle 5 shopping for Frosted Flakes. A sticky interaction, one worn like memory, like cut-off jean jacket hiding in the back of the closet. When M & I leave for Highway 1, they feel the grief. Miss Body, wish their children could have seen the swag of their grin, heard the sharp cuts of Body’s laugh. They want to tell us these things, want to postpone the distance, but say “Be careful” instead.
…
……..
M & I stop for gas in North Lake Tahoe. We barely make the sunset, water lava-lamp-like, holding ground as we stumble over twigs & tired feet to catch a glimpse. We find the cheapest gas in town, only two options. Fill the tank slowly. A busted black Corolla drives in slowly. The teen boys inside open the door, speak slowly. Say, “Hey! Slow down, baby.” M & I move quickly. Body watches from the next pump, filling up his baby blue Bronco. Shakes his head slowly, says nothing.
… ………..
Body agrees that being locked in a car-sized cage & being licked by Kevin Spacey for a year is better than living out every “would you rather” scenario in alternate dimensions, but not by much.
… ……
M & I stay with our friend L in San Francisco. L takes us to their neighborhood bar. Tells us the first time they really felt their legs was when they took rose-oil-infused-ketamine with Queens at a Pride party. Body sings “We Are the Champions” with the karaoke DJ as we take boomerang videos of our apricot beers clinking.
… ……….
M, L, & I talk numbers, how they follow us. M says 5 is her favorite, a sign of luck when she drives the 12 hours from Minnesota to Denver, & then back again. L says seeing 22, 23, & 24 before their 28th birthday lets them know when to leave someone behind. I have an affinity for 32, my first jersey when I was 9. Tell them about the time K told me about my palm. Told me that I’d meet Body when I was 32. Said, “This uncertainty will be gone at 32.” Body passes us on the sidewalk, crosses south to head down Hyde. We head east, back to the car before the meter runs out at 12:45.
…
For Marie, who played 1,632 games of Would-You-Rather with me while we remembered Body’s face.
…….
Shawnie Hamer was born in the heat & dust of Bakersfield, CA. Her first book, the stove is off at home (Spuyten Duyvil, 2018) is an experimental art & poetry book curated through a community ritual which focused on the identification & exorcism of trauma. Hamer is the founder of collective.aporia, & a co-conspirator of the off.collective. Her poetry can be found in publications such as Bombay Gin, Tooth n Nail: practical advice from and for the everywoman, The Birds We Piled Loosely, SWP Guerrilla Lit Mag, & Tiny Spoon Lit Mag. She is currently living & creating in France.
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