We Still Have to Make Fireworks by Hand
We have not converged since the new milleniadespite isolating in the same room, day
after day. But a good day. We set some brie into a shell
with onions from the farmbox—play
a video game where we cook as a team. No yelling—
no deciding which weapon to take on the quest
and I do not write all day.
We slip into bed
awkward, when the light is out, you slide to 11—
your mouth becomes a hot stone
curves the soft hairs of my upper
lip. No teeth. I think I need
to wax or pluck. But what
does it matter?
This is more centrifugal than I remember
it being. My boulder of a body
has only become more conspicuous.
Your beard is microwave deluge with saliva with
too much wet warm post-covid nose
-whistling—we’re gaspers, thrilling
everywhere. I remind myself, I wanted—I keep
at it. Maybe we
both need practice. I never remember needing
practice in all the years of falling translucent into beds.
But my bones are release and crackle, nodes
not-quite-slicing together. Empty brow. Elbow. Round.
Do you feel this chasm as it fills
with ice? I think. We have been over our celestial nail
then butter tray then wave winnower. We circulate
each other
for too long. I dream that I am wonderful to you. That
we are not some parallel of too fast too
hard aligning too slow
too soft. So long
a bearded man kisses a ghost in the room where
I sleep. I hold my own
neck—dream other people’s intimacy.
You were gone in a moment. Well, I needed
a few more moments.
A swift succession of windpipe
to remove my body, to remove
my head like a bauble and dance
beside—to lie.
Your knee crossed away.
The body tells usif we look closely. I
had not been looking
closely enough.
Some poet.
This program knew
what I would do to my hair
before I took the clippers
close to the base of my skull
in the pandemic. No
mirror to guide.
Hand behind.
The width of my arm like
the trunk of a tree slides
to the floor as if to tell you
I have given up.
The left eye holds it
together
while the right blinks
like a stop
light in a crushing
intersection. We see the same
future.
Neither of us are in that one.
Art Works By M.S. Evans
- Banner: Blue Moon
- Hug Vignette
- Shears Vignette
- Kari, a portrait
Kari Flickinger is the author of The Gull and the Bell Tower (Femme Salvé Books, December 2020). Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and the SFPA Rhysling Award. She is an alumna of UC Berkeley and the Community of Writers. Tweets at: @KariFlickinger
M.S. Evans is a writer and visual artist. Originally from Seattle, she currently lives in her family’s old town of Butte, Montana. Her work has been published in journals including: Feral, Anti-Heroin Chic, The BeZine, Re-Side, Versification , Black Bough Poetry, The Daily Drunk, and previously in ‘Geographies’, ‘Mother/Service/Voice’ series and “Pandemic Dispatches” from Ice Floe Press. Twitter: @SeaNettleInk Instagram: @/seanettleart
IceFloe Press 