by Katherine Chiemi
a. fire
if you say it doesn’t hurt, it won’t, but if you say it won’t hurt, it hurts double: that’s the worry
currency— it resists premeditation. I spend it before it comes, scooping soft clay out the bottom
of the vessel until it becomes an uneasy, fettered aqueduct. I think about slicing the tips of my
fingers off with a knife and I play the game of replacing the thought part by part until it’s not me/
it’s him, it’s not a knife/it’s a song, it’s not blood/it’s thicker, honeyed, until it’s the same thought
in different clothes and I can continue the long drive to Richmond.
b. the mudroom
I begin to become outside myself, blood to wine to pomegranate pips, tethered by cannula to the
stready thrum of something else beating my heart and drawing my breath with the careful hands
of a harpist. each string plucked is an alarm that sets off other alarms, a pinball machine of
money-making sounds and the thwack of worry paddles. braid my hair close to my head and take
heavy shears to my clothes, a straight cut up the back like a doll dress. I’ll wash the mud off
while I wait to become more me and less machine.
c. heaven, if you can believe it
a sketch of grace, which isn’t love, no matter how many times to you pull it out to check. my
dance card is full, one name scrawled a thousand times, but when I met her she just looked like
me, looked at me, and I missed the bruised body, the folds of skin and cramping muscles. the
empty air just doesn’t do it for me.
::
Katherine Chiemi is a movement artist, archivist, and poet. Social media: @katherinechiemi.
Image: pomegranate seeds.
ID: Sina Katirachi
Psaltery & Lyre 