This selection, chosen by guest editor JJ Rowan, is from Mom in Space by Lisa Ampleman (LSU Press 2024).
Reasons for Lack of Success
The BPA saturating
grocery-store receipts
or sprayed into cans
before the chickpeas and beans.
Genetic defect,
a stripe of helix miscoupling,
glitch written as my
genesis coded itself.
Pestilence or
pesticides as I lolled
in the womb. Too
much time in hot
tubs or not enough,
chronic stress,
the grime that gathers
around the bathroom fixtures
no matter what cleanser
I try. Adhesions
from my appendix:
peritoneal snarls.
A closed soul,
not wanting a child
with the fervor it deserves.
Wanting it excessively,
posing together like a nativity
set without its centerpiece,
out of season,
sentimental. Like that
insect that entered
through the exhaust fan
chirring at the window:
bamboozled by biological urge.
JJ Rowan is a queer nonbinary poet and dancer whose writing and movement practices have developed largely out of collaborative approaches and the pursuit of deep connection. They are looking for the places where the written line and the lines of the moving body intersect, where genre blurs and remixes and reboots, and where style and role reach maximum fluidity and deeper capacity. Their chapbook, a simple verb, is available from Bloof Books. You can follow their handwriting and movement projects on Instagram.
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