to be a dreamer you have to change the way you relate to objects
i am not this object but i am a woman
imagine a dark room with one lamp lit erect
i am a mad
woman not angry at
all but bleeding through the tips of fingers
sewing a sturdy zipper
in the crotch of each man
’s pair of jeans
i pull on smooth
does that look me enough to you
i am a girl building a capacity a movement within
the zipper that zips up the man in this woman
what does gender got to do with a table
I Google translate Lorca on the bus ride home from Trader Joe’s with you. There is a boy in Ballad of the Moon Moon. And in the English of Google, this boy: becomes a child. Loses all gender. Between female 1st Avenue and male Avenue B we see a female mother teaching her male child how to play this male first female person male shooter male game on their female iPhone. As the male bus jerks to a female stop and speeds off through a male green light the male boy is shooting male bullets from his female fingers. His female mother watches, proud. That female shit used to bother me. Male bullets flying everywhere on the female screen. But now, I go about my female ride. I’m completely male desensitized. I don’t hear the female blood splattering, the male gun reloading, the male boy laughing as male he learns how powerful male his female fingers can be. I press the male red female button and hear the female ding for the next male stop: male Avenue C. I get off with my male our female Trader Joe’s female bags and my newly translated male Lorca female poem.
environments building on themselves not themselves
anymore when the balloon is
up and up and rubber touching air squeaking the sky
but never rubbing the blue off
environments like me
rub up against you
are systems of hairs standing up on skin plastered
on muscles tense when our hands hold the sweat in between
gazing down
pavement we can still see
the tree shaking from the wind
i always shake a little within
environments like us worry worlds like this boy on girl on boy on fists plunging
into cereal boxes in search of a toy
who wins if it’s free
trash bins are full
of superwoman action figures thrown out by every boy who wants a man for
himself
environment is pre fall end of day coolness running its fingers through the trees
move slow sensuality
you’re across the room
environment is
receding curry smells
each a toy solider standing surrounding you’re beautiful
when you spoon rice from our pot i can’t
take my eyes off
of your body
full of motion and
i can tell you that
our love lives in the darkness of a blink
These poems are excerpted from the chapbook On Being Mistaken (PANK Books), coming May 2018.
Laura Buccieri is the author of, on being mistaken (PANK Books, 2018). You can find her most recent work in Cosmonauts Avenue, Metatron, Prelude, Lambda Literary, Word Riot, Apogee, and elsewhere. She is the Publicist at Copper Canyon Press and lives in NYC— and online at laurabuccieri.com.
Featured Image Credit: PANTEHA ABARESHI
