Your displeasure encircled,
like descending mesh, that first occasion
we called a conversation.
Was I the blanched insect
and you the hunter,
with your barbed question-net?
The gendered metaphor
flutters weakly, but does not dieNo feminist assertion
swoops down to devour it.
This is new territory.
There is no theory that can
rival this, me splintering
under your gaze
like last century’s womanAs if you had pinched the thorax
of a butterfly,
fastened me to a board
with each quick piercing
of disapproving thoughts,
like an entomologist’s
single-minded enamel pinsPins in a woman’s dress,
pins in her hair,
pins, pins, to fix, to fix her –
with a needle and thread
she sits, sewing her silence,
an inheritance passed onI hold her in contempt, but here I am
weaving quietude and guilt
while you tell me how you feel.
Still, it seems to me
your mouth is a wound
I want to stitch up
Your eyes, once seamless,
now full of gashes
that refuse my useless craftI wasn’t trying to convince you.
I just needed you to know
how it felt to cradle this heavy speck,
the frightening consequences
of blood and semen.
To hear of hormones,
caressing me like warm heroin
or the voice of a hypnotistI couldn’t describe it. I was slipping
from your downturned mouth,
like a stitch from a knitting needle
now futile and crooked.
I told you later that I would do it.
“Fuck the world” I said,
and we fucked,
and I pulled up the blanket
so you wouldn’t see the question mark
hovering like paused scissors
over my terrible bellyI unravelled.
The safety pin inside,
coming loose, lanced me.
And guilt formed, like a clot.
Guilt grew at a faster pace.
I cowered before guilt,
and its threat of emptiness
that gaped at me
like a hole in my stocking,
widening, widening.Grief-struck, I messaged you.
I don’t know what to do, I said.
You explained, over text,
the procedure to me,
gleaned from a doctor friend:
“The first pill detaches the embryo
from the uterus.
The second pill flushes it out.”As if it needed explaining.
As if I had not thought about
running away with
the possibilities in my flesh.
As if I had not scrolled through
countless internet pages,
every medical point a pricking,
drawing blood in advanceWhen you sent me that text,
matter-of fact, cold, like a needle
through my frayed cloth-mind,
did you feel any sadness,
for the lump that was us, nascent,
for the girl who stroked your hair?
And so I bled, and bled,
and released the tiny burden.You were sad, you did say,
after I lay in a hospital bed
empty of the loaded clot,
you were sad because of how I felt.
I know men don’t feel
the body’s cushioning response,
its demands, but you demanded tooAll feminist affirmations
bounced off the glass or lightly stuck
and slid away.
No rally sign or slogan badge tells us this.
You’re either for, or against –
there is no messy space in between.
No one explains, and I tried to.But when you explained
the procedure to me,
so calmly over text,
you dropped my heart, like a rag,
in a pool of dirty water.
I didn’t know
you were carrying it.
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones