NAMING IS AN HONOR
in genesis, god formed wild animals out of the earth
as it spun on its axis like an omniscient potter at a wheel.
he then gifted each one to adam. and whatever the man
called each living creature that was its name. an honor
afforded to the first human only slightly diminished by
his position as the only human, a condition remedied
just after. as soon as adam finished naming all the birds
in the sky, he fell into a deep sleep and god formed his rib
into another human being. she shall be called “woman,”
for she was taken out of man. and names begat gender and
gender begat names and my parents begat both along with
me. they tell me that if i had been a boy, i would have
been called tristan or declan, but they knew soon enough
that you would be a girl and focused on mallory and
phoebe. an honor awarded to the parents, only slightly
diminished by the fact that she was a lump of cells in her
mother’s womb and no one else’s. and any name they
called this living creature would be her name; she would
be birth name for she was taken out of her mother, hewn
into a human and stuck with an f, origami of expectations
and name like a bow. naming is an honor, a permanent
honor. naming is an honor. and i do not want any part of it.
AIRSHOW
every august, kids come back to school with
bright red skin, sunburnt from standing on an
expanse of packed dirt, staring up at the sky.
at the planes, chugging across a field of blue.
at the spirals, the figure eights, the loop-de-
loops, the crowns of smoke capping off the
summer. their fingers grow sticky with the
residue of cotton candy and the perfume–
eau de county fair, eau de skinned knees
and freedom–clings to their clothes. their
world bursts beyond the bounds of their
neighborhoods, beyond the radius of
what is reachable by bicycle, and they
remember that in a few days they’ll be
in first period math when they see the
algebra teacher loading her lawn chair
into the trunk of her car. the summer after
graduation, ghosts of your prom dress
still haunting around your ankles, you
realize that you probably went to school
with the pilot or at least his little sister and
you want to untangle the web that links
you with every upturned face, but you’ve
been eating the cotton candy, too. you
want to stop, but the planes are strangely
hypnotic, making their circles in the sky.
strange entrapments, these familiarities,
these small reminders of yourself running
around pockmarked with band-aids and
smiling awe. a few summers after that, you
are walking outside and a fighter jet is passing
overhead, and you are standing there realizing
hat the kids will be coming back to school pale
this year, if at all, and the web, previously so
indestructible is dissolving like cotton candy
in water and your skin hurts like sunburn
though you haven’t seen the sun in weeks.
SELF-PORTRAIT AS MUSEUM VISITOR
i have been breathing in the air,
thick with creation, along with
the rest of the world, whether
or not we realized the way that
inspirations were layering inside
our lungs, waiting to be coughed
out in kindergarten finger-paint
or doodles in college notebook
margins. i have existed as the next
door neighbor of brunelleschi’s
dome and michelangelo’s david,
slept with canvases over my bed
like sentinels, and spent so much
time in galleries that i am more
baroque frame than bone, more
brushstrokes along blaschko’s
lines than flesh. oil has seeped
through my pores and pigment
clumps are sticking to my ribs. i
am not a person, i am wandering,
weaving in and out of the statues
living in the streets, or perhaps i
am one of the statues themselves,
with a stomach of marble-chub
and glow of a renaissance model.
i am a piece of art myself and i
prefer that when i close my eyes,
see the photograph i once snapped
of a tourist standing in the uffizi
alone in front of the birth of venus
and i cannot tell if i am behind or in
front of the lens, if i am in front of
the painting or within, balanced on a
shell and beautiful with no parameter.
CHROMATIC
i have something to show you, you said,
pushing the creaky out-of-tune keys off
the piano into a scale packed with sharps
and flats, ascension-descent into a sweet
and rueful song you taught yourself by ear.
and it’s the end of the world as we know it,
you observed, hair leaking rich brown into t
he porcelain of the bathroom sink as you
gulped down another burning-bitter throat
full of vodka flavored with cherry syrup.
you remind us later, you didn’t have time
to learn that song before you were chased
home by the pointed teeth of mounted fear.
i remind you that after you left, it seemed
as if life had been bleached, yet someone
took your place in front of the baby grand.
someone started playing it anyway.
SHEETZ
who goes to a gas station for pizza?,
they asked, and i responded, we live
like this, without anywhere to go on a
friday night we fill up with pizza and
gas in one neon, bitter-perfumed stop
and then cruise the highway until we
run out of places to go or patience for
the one traffic light. we’ve lived here
long enough to no longer be surprised
by the scenes of monotonous small-
town excitement-routine and, eyebrows
unraised, the big-city friend and i follow
the ritual of invented shock, placing our
tongues inside the familiar words like
when it snows and you step into prints
left by some other carefully balanced
walker so you can find purchase on the
prepacked surface we navigate regional
difference and population margin. who
sells gas for ninety-five cents? the gas
station could pass for nineteen eighty
five, my father comments as we pass by
on a nighttime drive like he did and i
did and every other driver we pass did
in high school and are doing now again.
who lives like this for such a cheap price?
M. P. Armstrong is a disabled queer poet from Ohio, studying English and history at Kent State University. Their work appears or is forthcoming in Luna Negra, Red Earth Review, and Social Distanzine, among others. They also serve as managing editor and reporter for Curtain Call and Fusion magazines. In their spare time, they enjoy traveling, board games, and brightly colored blazers. Find them online @mpawrites and at mpawrites.wixsite.com/website.