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THAT'S OKAY BECAUSE I GO BY THICKNESS

no wonder how all the repression
impacts my physical health, like
the cool shine of sweat on my forehead
at the very tip of the front
of my forehead and how I twill
how I spin the pen in my hand rotate it even
to get a better angle like my vibrator
but life actually is about filling your head
with podcasts and your mouth with food


your pores and holes with medicine


my nails are all different lengths
I’m gripping in the toes so much
my feet aren’t on the ground


I envision it perfectly
but I claim I remember it perfectly, also


what could be more innocently imagined
than distant childhood and distant adulthood?
just as there were snowball fights and kisses
in the gym just as there were dark, roaringly quiet bus trips


cupped between our hands, as there were
huge silhouettes in the doorway, and eating Cheez Its
on a swing under a tarp in a storm
only me and two young people, in love in their first house


just as I lay there delicate, reduced to a floating gaze
good only for seeing you from your shoulder,
I will see it capsize as skillfully as it washes up -
I will see its splinters spelled plainly by sunlight.

ERIN SHAPLAND

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