And yes, I will have this act again

And yes, I will have this act again. I will see it through like a
whimper, cold shoulders in the pond, its scent decomposing
too strongly odored like a fox, this flesh, unruly. Quick body
in the turn, the downstream current, l’oiseau qui chante. Le
bruit qui chante, reopen the window, this light, l’oiseau, and
the tilt, à gauche, like a folding, the trees, fluorescent, craned
necks, like a wailing of ghost, this light of skin.

Yesterday I saw my home running through someone else’s
dream, absconding from me like a rude mockingbird. She
wore stilt legs, long tights, was flipping her skirt as she went
along.

And sometimes being human feels like wrapping pink twine
around a bold wolf’s ear, knotting his wheat fur, combing his
tail. Where to even place your hands when near his back?
How to avoid hesitation to assert hierarchy? I check the
pelvis for fleas and the muzzle bites back. Bad mouth like a
bird I try to pin better. I swallow, smile docile, the crane who
can’t fly.

Pussyfooting: because your cock comes first. Pussyfooting:
because everyone else is broken. Pussyfooting: because
your erection is hurting. Pussyfooting: because your partner
must be interested. Pussyfooting: because what other choice
did you have.

Mother says to stay proper but I keep spilling my skirt. The
blond sheep bleat red before I noticed her wool. The baker
had to scold before I stole loaves of bread. The subway had
to break down nine times before I began to slip my hands
into people’s back pockets—but how I loved my hands once
they were there.

When I ask am I creaturial I ask was my mother creature too.
Did she dream of fish leaving the aquarium, the terrarium
walls melting, falling at our feet puddled and swimming?

Sometimes the cock is a quick bird I try to catch with my
hands, but end up fumbling on my blouse instead. You have
to practice practice the soft pulling pink. Nurture your nails to
fine tune the wrist. My hand’s a bent corner. My hand’s a
violin. Come now controlled, let loose now the yarn.

It took me years to build into this wild. Whole lineages of
growth, little bean poles tangling. Intimacy of the okapi,
intimacy of the polar bear. My body never stood a chance at
independence, we were curdled before born. We’ll never live
without our mothers, the way they thread our spines shaping
the arches of our backs, our verbed necks, lifted arm lifted
shoulder. I hold such fear in my shoulders so I’ll carry that
forward.

And why is restraint seen as so wholly unwanted? Jawlines
to angle, the brows now to bold. Make the mouth a tight
soldier, but let her be coy.

I watched how he climbed each rung of her body, how he
praised her borrowed skin. The cicadas crawling up my arms
to my ears. Suckling, they hang like wet leaves. Even
interiority grows crowded. It’s like standing on the edge; you
start looking all around.

This is my body after the storm, backwash green, mildew
and blue. My lips smile with whittle teeth. My legs like
wooden toys. Skinned feet like a lamb. A blind felt piglet. In
french, the words for smile and mouse brush shoulders.
Mother tells me better face the wolf than your own accord,
better make a list than face the wolf, better remember the
thread from your wrist to his ear.

And yes, I will have this act again. I will see it through like a
whimper, cold shoulders in the pond, its scent decomposing
too strongly odored like a fox, this flesh, unruly. Quick body
in the turn, the downstream current, l’oiseau qui chante. Le
bruit qui chante, reopen the window, this light, l’oiseau, and
the tilt, à gauche, like a folding, the trees, fluorescent, craned
necks, like a wailing of ghost, this light of skin.

Yesterday I saw my home running through someone else’s
dream, absconding from me like a rude mockingbird. She
wore stilt legs, long tights, was flipping her skirt as she went
along.

And sometimes being human feels like wrapping pink twine
around a bold wolf’s ear, knotting his wheat fur, combing his
tail. Where to even place your hands when near his back?
How to avoid hesitation to assert hierarchy? I check the
pelvis for fleas and the muzzle bites back. Bad mouth like a
bird I try to pin better. I swallow, smile docile, the crane who
can’t fly.

Pussyfooting: because your cock comes first. Pussyfooting:
because everyone else is broken. Pussyfooting: because
your erection is hurting. Pussyfooting: because your partner
must be interested. Pussyfooting: because what other choice
did you have.

Mother says to stay proper but I keep spilling my skirt. The
blond sheep bleat red before I noticed her wool. The baker
had to scold before I stole loaves of bread. The subway had
to break down nine times before I began to slip my hands
into people’s back pockets—but how I loved my hands once
they were there.

When I ask am I creaturial I ask was my mother creature too.
Did she dream of fish leaving the aquarium, the terrarium
walls melting, falling at our feet puddled and swimming?

Sometimes the cock is a quick bird I try to catch with my
hands, but end up fumbling on my blouse instead. You have
to practice practice the soft pulling pink. Nurture your nails to
fine tune the wrist. My hand’s a bent corner. My hand’s a
violin. Come now controlled, let loose now the yarn.

It took me years to build into this wild. Whole lineages of
growth, little bean poles tangling. Intimacy of the okapi,
intimacy of the polar bear. My body never stood a chance at
independence, we were curdled before born. We’ll never live
without our mothers, the way they thread our spines shaping
the arches of our backs, our verbed necks, lifted arm lifted
shoulder. I hold such fear in my shoulders so I’ll carry that
forward.

And why is restraint seen as so wholly unwanted? Jawlines
to angle, the brows now to bold. Make the mouth a tight
soldier, but let her be coy.

I watched how he climbed each rung of her body, how he
praised her borrowed skin. The cicadas crawling up my arms
to my ears. Suckling, they hang like wet leaves. Even
interiority grows crowded. It’s like standing on the edge; you
start looking all around.

This is my body after the storm, backwash green, mildew
and blue. My lips smile with whittle teeth. My legs like
wooden toys. Skinned feet like a lamb. A blind felt piglet. In
french, the words for smile and mouse brush shoulders.
Mother tells me better face the wolf than your own accord,
better make a list than face the wolf, better remember the
thread from your wrist to his ear.

And yes, I will have this act again. I will see it through like a whimper, cold shoulders in the pond, its scent decomposing too strongly odored like a fox, this flesh, unruly. Quick body in the turn, the downstream current, l’oiseau qui chante. Le bruit qui chante, reopen the window, this light, l’oiseau, and the tilt, à gauche, like a folding, the trees, fluorescent, craned necks, like a wailing of ghost, this light of skin.

Yesterday I saw my home running through someone else’s dream, absconding from me like a rude mockingbird. She wore stilt legs, long tights, was flipping her skirt as she went along.

And sometimes being human feels like wrapping pink twine around a bold wolf’s ear, knotting his wheat fur, combing his tail. Where to even place your hands when near his back? How to avoid hesitation to assert hierarchy? I check the pelvis for fleas and the muzzle bites back. Bad mouth like a bird I try to pin better. I swallow, smile docile, the crane who can’t fly.

Pussyfooting: because your cock comes first. Pussyfooting: because everyone else is broken. Pussyfooting: because your erection is hurting. Pussyfooting: because your partner must be interested. Pussyfooting: because what other choice did you have.

Mother says to stay proper but I keep spilling my skirt. The blond sheep bleat red before I noticed her wool. The baker had to scold before I stole loaves of bread. The subway had to break down nine times before I began to slip my hands into people’s back pockets—but how I loved my hands once they were there.

When I ask am I creaturial I ask was my mother creature too. Did she dream of fish leaving the aquarium, the terrarium walls melting, falling at our feet puddled and swimming?

Sometimes the cock is a quick bird I try to catch with my hands, but end up fumbling on my blouse instead. You have to practice practice the soft pulling pink. Nurture your nails to fine tune the wrist. My hand’s a bent corner. My hand’s a violin. Come now controlled, let loose now the yarn.

It took me years to build into this wild. Whole lineages of growth, little bean poles tangling. Intimacy of the okapi, intimacy of the polar bear. My body never stood a chance at independence, we were curdled before born. We’ll never live without our mothers, the way they thread our spines shaping the arches of our backs, our verbed necks, lifted arm lifted shoulder. I hold such fear in my shoulders so I’ll carry that forward.

And why is restraint seen as so wholly unwanted? Jawlines to angle, the brows now to bold. Make the mouth a tight soldier, but let her be coy.

I watched how he climbed each rung of her body, how he praised her borrowed skin. The cicadas crawling up my arms to my ears. Suckling, they hang like wet leaves. Even interiority grows crowded. It’s like standing on the edge; you start looking all around.

This is my body after the storm, backwash green, mildew and blue. My lips smile with whittle teeth. My legs like wooden toys. Skinned feet like a lamb. A blind felt piglet. In french, the words for smile and mouse brush shoulders. Mother tells me better face the wolf than your own accord, better make a list than face the wolf, better remember the thread from your wrist to his ear.

Emilie Menzel is a poet and writer whose work seeks to engage both creative and analytical properties of language, recently through themes of fables and fairy tales, grief and haunting, and metamorphoses of the body. Emilie is the recipient of the Deborah Slosberg Memorial Award in Poetry (selected by Diana Khoi Nguyen) and the Cara Parravani Memorial Award in Fiction (selected by Leigh Newman), and she received her MFA in poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in May 2019. She lives in wooded Massachusetts and online @emilieideas.

Emilie Menzel is a poet and writer whose work seeks to engage both creative and analytical properties of language, recently through themes of fables and fairy tales, grief and haunting, and metamorphoses of the body. Emilie is the recipient of the Deborah Slosberg Memorial Award in Poetry (selected by Diana Khoi Nguyen) and the Cara Parravani Memorial Award in Fiction (selected by Leigh Newman), and she received her MFA in poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in May 2019. She lives in wooded Massachusetts and online @emilieideas.