Selection from “(in the space where i was)”

13

(because I have saved what I can use)
(and the rest of you will rot soon enough)
(and your eyes watch me from a bowl)
(and later I will feed them to a mouse who will be eaten by a snake)
(and you never stared with such intent when you had lids)
(and the stench enters my lungs without invitation)
(and this is how you speak to me now)
(and how I listen)
(and I breathe deeply to listen deeply)
(and hold my breath when I want silence)
(and every day is sleepwalking)
(and I never wake)
(and our home is as it was but the walls shift in and out)
(and the rooms are not always in the same place)
(and I wait for you to arrive)
(and watch the faceless clock)
(and you must be stuck inside your bones)
(and so I pulverize each one)
(and this work takes days)
(and I spread the dust along your favorite paths)
(and on the bed)
(and I feather it on like shimmering powder)
(and your fingernails I string into a necklace)
(and your teeth I fashion as earrings)
(and I weave your hair into an anklet)
(and they say the world is made of halves)
(and those halves find one another)
(and the first time I saw you I went to you)
(and it was as if I were floating)
(and my bones felt hollow)
(and something moved through them in a rush)
(and when you said my name my body filled as if with viscous liquid)
(and I had no more need for lightness)
(and words vacated my mouth)
(and my skin expunged impurities)
(and your skin was a vacation from my own)
(and I traced letters on your back)
(and you could never get them right)
(and you told me you had nightmares so I held you)
(and did not sleep for years)
(and they say the world is made of parts)
(and those parts recall being whole)
(and I know now that emptiness fills us)
(and what we perceived as space was always inhabited)
(and breathing)
(and it longed for the wholeness we longed for)
(and I circle the pasture three times before entering)
(and step carefully over the cattle guard)
(and remove your head from a lingerie bag)
(and place it on the post)
(and I watch)
(and the crows come)
(and dance around the find)
(and what is left of you is no longer you)
(and it nourishes)

—

This selection is from Dana Guthrie Martin’s chapbook In the Space Where I Was, available from Hyacinth Girl Press. Purchase your copy here!

Dana Guthrie Martin’s work has appeared in numerous journals, including Barrow Street, Boxcar Poetry Review, Failbetter, Fence, Knockout Literary Magazine, and Vinyl Poetry. Her chapbooks include In the Space Where I Was (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2012), Toward What Is Awful (YesYes Books, 2012), and The Spare Room (Blood Pudding Press, 2009). Dana was recently diagnosed with primary immunodeficiency and thanks all blood and plasma donors for their life-saving donations to those in need.

Mary Stone Dockery is the author of One Last Cigarette, a poetry collection, and the chapbooks Blink Finch and The Dopamine Letters. Her poetry and prose has appeared inStirring: A Literary Collection, Gutter Eloquence, Arts & Letters, Redactions, and others. She earned her MFA from the University of Kansas in 2012. Currently, she lives and writes in St. Joseph, MO, where she teaches English at Missouri Western State University and coordinates the First Thursdays Open Mic at Norty’s Bar and Grill.

Selection from “(in the space where i was)”

12

(because while you are sleeping I stand in the hall)
(and wait for your breath)
(and what I mean is I wait for the familiar scent you give off like a flower yielding to hastened decay in the absence of a root system)
(and the scent is sickly sweet in spite of, or because of, the decay)
(and the sweetness rises from my feet)
(and hangs on my skin like mosquito spray)
(and I whisper dear taker of the taken, dear flesh of the fleshless)
(and I cover you in ampersands and et ceteras until you can no longer move)
(and until the weight feels like a rock burial)
(and I want to see how long you will keep breathing)
(and at what point your body will stop being a contagion)
(and I wonder what you will do to me then)
(and how we will negotiate our new physicality)
(and if inside your lungs you have stashed windmills)
(and if those windmills will tear at your internal landscape as they fall)
(and kick up clods)
(and if inside your wrists bailing wire will tighten)
(and hold you in your fighting posture)
(and keep you from flight)
(and how for me, near the end, plate tectonics seemed to govern every suspended organ)
(and they swelled)
(and shifted)
(and competed for limited space)
(and a broken rib or two might have relieved the strain)
(and how would I prepare your body)
(and would I wash your heart in a butter churn)
(and dry it with doilies)
(and preparing a body for burial always feels like preparing a body for burial)
(and after is more like before than you might think)
(and will you recognize me now that I have grafted feathers to every pore which, with a blade’s urging, would accept a quill)
(and your arm slips from the bed)
(and nearly lands on the floor)
(and your fingers spread as if to reveal a precious token you want to show me)
(and there is nothing in your hand but air)
(and perhaps that is what you want me to see)
(and sheets lie about you in surrender)
(and twist around your legs)
(and your skin turns pale on top)
(and plum red underneath)
(and it is as if the sun of your body is setting)
(and now blue is ushered in)
(and would you thank me)
(and how many nights have I heard you beg for this)
(and wail in tongues about how you missed me)
(and I know every language now, even the ones we made up)
(and I know how the long O escapes the throat before we can retract it)
(and that the throat is merely a place to house the O)
(and it is shaped like an O)
(and the teeth hold the throat in place like pincers)
(and you used to open my mouth and pinch my nose)
(and breathe into me until I thought I would explode)
(and the last time you did that I passed out)
(and woke up later alone)
(and the sun had gone down)
(and I could not remember the day)
(and it was then that I realized your name was both noun and verb)
(and you were agent and action)
(and I was acted upon)
(and I balanced on that thought)
(and the sun came up)
(and I realized I had missed it)
(and you returned)
(and said I had nearly killed you)
(and when you breathed back in)
(and my air filled your lungs)
(and you began to convulse, you had all the evidence you needed against me)
(and you had always suspected I was taint)
(and you had hoped you were wrong)
(and I was just like the others)
(and I can’t remember what you said next)
(and I tried to dress)
(and your mouth gnashed as you pulled the ribbon from my corset)
(and ordered me to lead the way to the pasture)
(and I wanted to look back at you)
(and I knew I shouldn’t)
(and I didn’t want you to see my face)
(and I walked slowly like an old barn animal with bad joints)
(and your hand went into my back)
(and I saw the post you had set)
(and you tied me to it)
(and touched me)
(and whistled Wade in the Water)
(and said you were sorry)
(and damned yourself for what you had to do)
(and I raised my hand)
(and you broke it)
(and I sucked my skin where it hurt)
(and the grass underfoot was coarse)
(and itched)

—

This selection is from Dana Guthrie Martin’s chapbook In the Space Where I Was, available from Hyacinth Girl Press. Purchase your copy here!

Dana Guthrie Martin’s work has appeared in numerous journals, including Barrow Street, Boxcar Poetry Review, Failbetter, Fence, Knockout Literary Magazine, and Vinyl Poetry. Her chapbooks include In the Space Where I Was (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2012), Toward What Is Awful (YesYes Books, 2012), and The Spare Room (Blood Pudding Press, 2009). Dana was recently diagnosed with primary immunodeficiency and thanks all blood and plasma donors for their life-saving donations to those in need.

Mary Stone Dockery is the author of One Last Cigarette, a poetry collection, and the chapbooks Blink Finch and The Dopamine Letters. Her poetry and prose has appeared inStirring: A Literary Collection, Gutter Eloquence, Arts & Letters, Redactions, and others. She earned her MFA from the University of Kansas in 2012. Currently, she lives and writes in St. Joseph, MO, where she teaches English at Missouri Western State University and coordinates the First Thursdays Open Mic at Norty’s Bar and Grill.

Selection from “(in the space where i was)”

9

(because the day you found me you tucked my hair behind my ears)
(and told me that was the way you liked it)
(and chanted your mother’s name as if it were holy)
(and drew a square for me to stand inside)
(and tied me up with corset binding)
(and told me this was to keep me safe)
(and every day you drew the square smaller using a stick of yellow chalk)
(and what you touched turned yellow)
(and yellow flowers bloomed then died)
(and I watched worms emerge in the rain only to lose track of their holes in the earth)
(and I can neither say earthworms feel joy nor can I saw they don’t)
(and sometimes I felt sick)
(and sometimes I wished for shoes)
(and I measured time by the length of my hair)
(and I kept it in braids)
(and tied it with blades of grass)
(and I could see the cattle guard)
(and I knew I could cross it)
(and took deep breaths)
(and watched the gravel road kick up dust)

 

—

This selection is from Dana Guthrie Martin’s chapbook In the Space Where I Was, available from Hyacinth Girl Press. Purchase your copy here!

Dana Guthrie Martin’s work has appeared in numerous journals, including Barrow Street, Boxcar Poetry Review, Failbetter, Fence, Knockout Literary Magazine, and Vinyl Poetry. Her chapbooks include In the Space Where I Was (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2012), Toward What Is Awful (YesYes Books, 2012), and The Spare Room (Blood Pudding Press, 2009). Dana was recently diagnosed with primary immunodeficiency and thanks all blood and plasma donors for their life-saving donations to those in need.

Mary Stone Dockery is the author of One Last Cigarette, a poetry collection, and the chapbooks Blink Finch and The Dopamine Letters. Her poetry and prose has appeared inStirring: A Literary Collection, Gutter Eloquence, Arts & Letters, Redactions, and others. She earned her MFA from the University of Kansas in 2012. Currently, she lives and writes in St. Joseph, MO, where she teaches English at Missouri Western State University and coordinates the First Thursdays Open Mic at Norty’s Bar and Grill.

Selection from “(in the space where i was)”

11

(because I run faster now)
(and wear gnats like a protective garment)
(and use worms as hair ties)
(and rid hillsides of poisonous flowers)
(and bathe in a mixture of salt and urine)
(and have a tattoo of smoke)
(and I heal myself)
(and what I cannot heal I grind to powder)
(and use as a decontaminant)
(and I sit across from you at dinner)
(and hum Gregorian chants)
(and I suck the rot from you each night)
(and whisper vacca foeda in your ear)
(and scatter the phrase ab aeterno over the fields)
(and imperative is my only mood)
(and when I have had too much singing my notes begin to slur)
(and my eyes roll back)
(and my neck snaps with recognition)
(and this is usually taken for dance)
(and sometimes taken for illness)
(and never taken for visitation)
(and I have forgotten what arms are for)
(and what they are capable of)
(and we used to hold ours out to compare lengths)
(and your reach was always greater)
(and yesterday was a thousand years and a thousand birds and a thousand misrepresentations)
(and inside the echo is a cave)
(and inside the scream a mouth)
(and inside the air a feather)
(and inside the nightmare a birth)
(and inside the stone a pool of water)
(and inside the body a pattern)
(and I string the heads of rabbits together)
(and wear them as a train)
(and they catch detritus in their fine hairs)
(and I sort what they collect)
(and place each item in an étagère)
(and once I found an owl pellet with bones inside)
(and worked the bones like a puzzle)
(and fitted them into the shape of a mouse)
(and not a single bone was missing)
(and I wondered if someone would ever fit me back together)
(and recognize me as human)
(and if you would try to pull me apart again)
(and did you mean it when you said you would let nothing of me go ever)
(and why years ago did you cut a swatch of skin from my thigh to use as a handkerchief when you could have had all of me at any time)
(and did holding back make you feel generous)
(and neurochemically balanced)
(and what did it feel like to carry part of me against your chest)
(and was it like running your hand along a nation’s flag, knowing your invasion was near)
(and lately I have been thinking of the way birds molt)
(and how feathers are dead structures)
(and if lives are cast off in this manner)
(and if that means something surrounding the life is not dead)
(and what exactly that might be)

 

—

This selection is from Dana Guthrie Martin’s chapbook In the Space Where I Was, available from Hyacinth Girl Press. Purchase your copy here!

Dana Guthrie Martin’s work has appeared in numerous journals, including Barrow Street, Boxcar Poetry Review, Failbetter, Fence, Knockout Literary Magazine, and Vinyl Poetry. Her chapbooks include In the Space Where I Was (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2012), Toward What Is Awful (YesYes Books, 2012), and The Spare Room (Blood Pudding Press, 2009). Dana was recently diagnosed with primary immunodeficiency and thanks all blood and plasma donors for their life-saving donations to those in need.

Mary Stone Dockery is the author of One Last Cigarette, a poetry collection, and the chapbooks Blink Finch and The Dopamine Letters. Her poetry and prose has appeared in Stirring: A Literary Collection, Gutter Eloquence, Arts & Letters, Redactions, and others. She earned her MFA from the University of Kansas in 2012. Currently, she lives and writes in St. Joseph, MO, where she teaches English at Missouri Western State University and coordinates the First Thursdays Open Mic at Norty’s Bar and Grill.