My new chapbook, trauma suture, uses erasure to excavate small truths & reconstruct identity. I created these poems while participating in 30/30s in a group called The Poeming, created by E.K. Anderson. I work with two texts; Indexing by Seanan McGuire, and Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews. Most of the erasure or remixed poems were created using a single page of the text. I’m grateful to Rob McLennan for publishing it with above/ground press!
“oh digitized meat war
we’re coming for you”
Chaoite
Dark grey mass
Shock-metamorphosed
From meteorite
You abrade
Easily
Scale off memory of impact –
Your shell
Not so hard it crumbles
Not so vulnerable it shatters
Resilience a specimen of the long game
Polymorphous – a learned behavior for trauma
Crystals have such nice faces
In a family of diamonds
Sub-metallic luster
Your allotropic
Double consciousness
White carbon
Thin bones
Strontium
Here we are
Shape of a worm
An interval of maintenance
This day we remain immure
Time a current
Deciduous leaves
Here in the species latex
Breathe to annul
Rubbing stick parts
Stems
Shrill dance of organ matrimony
Here lie vestigial buds
Their radial testament to joy
Any of several unfoldings to light
Charlatans for the wreckage – quick medicines
Caught in the points
I write this in the pouring rain, grateful for the temporary wash of virus from air. Petrichor comforting me on this day maintaining distance.
5 sutures await
So grateful for the warmth and delight of #sheltering in these poems. To be held by the woods is nothing short of majesty. So grateful to Aileen Cassinetto for publishing these three poems.
Poems are the little engine of resilience. Poems are really keeping me going right now.
Check out the whole series here, curated by Rob McLennan!
