After Birth
2015 Crab Fat Writing Contest Runner-Up
SPIED THROUGH BIRD’S EYE CRYSTAL:
-x-
Two inches below my navy: I beget the jut
Vomiting expanse: I leak the Insecure Island
Dry heaving the new dozen of dissatisfied animal:
(I BEG THEM TO SEEK NOURISHMENT)
Only after spun in volatile substances of moth ball and sertraline
will anchor their wrists into hollows
in hopes a mite of blood lust appears itself edible
-x x-
Once the witch of obligatory masculinity:
(Quivering mid incantation of incense and belabor)
Portly Sailors suck oysters from the tailgate
pad wax in their underarm
Impress fishwives with lemon breath
Shackle me to prow
of S.S. Pine or Sweet Lacquered Cherry
THE NEW FIGUREHEAD:
I’m slick I switch sex too quick
They can hold my hips
They can’t handle my hips
I rip and rage a whirlpool of sticks
Roughwater braids mates
tied and tears tearing torn
(And shouldn’t they
know how to swim?)
Fur and fin drift before afterbirth
Cling and hate each other approaching threadbare marsh
Paddling a dodecahedron of self-deprecation
Teeming open like grape leaves
Turns out we’re parts mostly horse hair and yank
-x x x-
Happening Liners consider My animal:
pets distressed
Mystified by our allergy to night vision
Our rejection to their mainland drown
(to be outfitted with the newest invitation in distraction)
Only once a year when puzzled in fog
My island vibrates Nerve
Choreography we’ve practiced in
Sleep through our lives
-x x x x-
Fade encircling the bog:
test the bath
(perfumed or else
spiked with grease water)
Cast in
I pull out
a reflex
Let it stink a ring around my fingers
It drains me from the shelter of analysis
(I’m sparse the further you follow
through me)
Allow my body to take a rest from breath
Drop from gas
Liquify
Deepen my arches into the milked March
-x x x x x-
Ceaseless Mutiny:
My animal pillage with the sweating venus
reined to their antler and strung antennae
Rippling out from the gut of the cay
dive and melt their pelts under
Drag my limb
Brand me further from the swear jar of my body
Pulsating
My animal unstring the echo from my bellow
-x x x x x x-
I come to:
Salt tucked under my eyelids
hot rag mulled in rank ciders
(stamped beneath our hooves last Blood
Moon)
suckled by my pigging gums
My animal prepare me to be cured
but feed me still to regain some tenderness
We didn’t ask to be brought here You said there was no way to swell the hate inside us
-x x x x x x x-
Time escapes me:
anthills ticking out The words heard blurs a vortex in my mouth
spits out Sagacity My animal stitched there
re-stringing the Nerve
They harmonize death tones
Perpetual chirp Flocking of the tide
rock me off the binary of this Star
Hoot:
A blackout
And a single pellet lifts from some northwesterly cannon
Smacks me moon lipstick
Heats a memory of future failure on the roof of my mouth
-x x x x x x x x-
Asleep
re-stitched and
ousted:
Tower I cannot control
BUT VIEW THAT ISLAND:
Ian Abernathy is a poet, playwright, performance artist and art school dropout. Most recently, Abernathy’s poetry play American Strongman was selected and read as part of the Writer’s Block festival at Howl Arts in NYC starring poet Corrina Bain and actress Judith Roberts. Abernathy’s work fixates on queerness, mental illness, and whatever else prevents a good night’s sleep.