Think About
the first time you met your body
beneath a yellow lake
first a cave then a mountain
feel your new weight under the moonless hour,
as the white wing of a bird gets caught in a paw
and the small bird feeds on a white butterfly,
both suspended above the sidewalk
(how)
when there’s a drizzle of rain and the smell of rotten wood
and a cat and I
watch ants scribble ‘round the porch
and his eyes watch their black bodies
and we, all living, understand
how to manage the space in-between us
our teeth, our fingers, our stingers at peace
knowing to be with one another beneath spirals of white wind
it peels back the Cruelty
When the cat comes back
with the smell of sweet earth in his fur
those teeth that killed those rabbits
and quietly lined them up against the house
when I check on them, months later — just spines and bones
and a piece of my chest!
my old body left out in the wet grass
trapped in melting fibers
from the open flame of the desert
that follows, roaming alone.
Cambridge, 2024
I started writing this poem in the kitchen of the house I am cat-sitting in and finished editing sitting on my laptop case in the grass outside in the backyard.
While driving back from Connecticut this weekend I did see a cardinal and chickadee in a fight with a white butterfly outside someone’s front yard, the butterfly got eaten by the chickadee at the end. So often I am fascinated by nature’s underlying cruelty. That sight helped me finish this poem. Thank you to my friend Jack for reading the first draft of this earlier this week!
Also, thank you everyone for your thrifting stories in response to last week’s issue! If you want to support Boomerang’s staff as the stores close, consider donating here.
✿ I have not read anything new this week, but I did watch My Name is Alice B. Toklas, a short film by Maira and Alex Kalman after reading a lot about Alice B. Toklas after reading Tender Buttons. It’s very a sweet and cute, and dare I say, tender look at the artist and woman who was at the side of Gertrude Stein.
✿ I listened to Cindy Lee’s latest album, Diamond Jubilee, while editing this piece and generally lying around this week. I love how it sounds like you’re toggling through the radio, much like how Cowboy Carter feels, without the fluffy transitions. I got into Cindy Lee in 2020 (Heavy Metal was on a constant loop) but only now found out it’s a drag persona lol. I love this line from this NPR music article:
Like the midcentury girl groups at the center of the moodboard, Cindy Lee's songs are about love — having lost it, most of all. Lee is lonesome, Lee is blue, Lee is riding the Greyhound to the Canadian border with nothing but their memories.
So me!
✿ I’ve also been listening to a lot of Ana Roxanne and am obsessed with Wildlife Freeway, a small project by Sunny Atema, a creator living in Joshua Tree. Clouds was so beautiful the first time I heard it I shed tears.
I am currently writing more long-form for future fotocopy issues, but for now, I am going to take a nap and get a tan outside.
Love you most,
-gabo