Warmer than you ever imagined
We think about what you were
thinking. Seems like you didn’t
care much about us.
Sure, we weren’t born yet,
but you were
and you bred nonstop.
We can’t survive outside,
air of cotton-candy,
thick like a cough.
We get heat stroke
if there’s no AC
or if it breaks
from the high temperatures
and running all day.
The world is all AC
and it’s only making it hotter1
The heat feels like wet
blankets stuffed down
our throats, boiling noodles
pulled through our nostrils.
No parent tells us to
get some sun. Did they
tell you that? The sun is enemy,
hotboxing us in
to a world with no windows,
only smoke. We can’t cool
earth down, it’s getting some
sun, alright. Will for millennia.
Is this what you wanted
for us?
A world we can’t touch,
land that burns,
air of smog and chemical tang.
[1] “The World Wants Air-Conditioning. That Could Warm the World.”, The New York Times
Women are dirty
Because only men are clean
women are dirty.
Can’t have sex with them
on their periods. Must wash them
in a special bath
before their wedding.
Don’t think of them
as fully human,
treat them however
you wish.
Men are too pure
to taint.
Don’t touch them
before they pray,
soiling their holiness.
Men are godlike,
and women are filthy
rugged monsters
with hairy caves
of pulsing muscle.
We glimmer,
covered in mineral.
Sweet
My friend says she can sniff out
when a woman is on it.
Like she opens our legs
and sees our own hue
without undressing us.
Smells like coffee
freshly roasted, the tinge
after you hold a key in your hand.
What does your period smell like?
Hold your nose close and inhale,
don’t be ashamed, now,
bleeders, you smell sweet.
Your odor is the possibility of
life fermenting in your bones.
a diagnosis II
die and know sick
didn’t know sick
die a non sick
don’t get too sick
one fish, two fish
now you’re useless,
lost your freshness
stale and helpless
diagnosis
sounds ferocious
like you’re stuck with
duck duck, you’re it
out of function
feel like sunk ship
can’t ignore it
down down you slip
to feel less dread
swallow your meds
make appointments
try to keep them
remember this:
don’t get too sick
A visit
If a poem resurrects, how many times have I tried?
Melissa Fite Johnson
for Bubbie
I want her to show up at my apartment
for lunch, like I’ve been expecting her.
Tsk at how I’m making the tuna wrong,
not enough celery, where’s the crunch.
She’ll pop the bread in the toaster,
I didn’t buy rye, but that’s what it’s become.
In my pantry, she pulls out chips,
always Lay’s with ridges,
and fills up two cups with peach tea.
After we eat, clean up all the crumbs,
she’ll wander the living room,
pause by the plants and prune,
can’t help herself.
Yanks a yellowed leaf off the pothos,
clears dried flowers from the shelves.
She sees the orchids on the windowsill,
tiny pink and purple dancers,
turns to me, red lipstick smile.
There’s so much I want to tell her, like
I’m published now, you read my first work, like
I found someone I love, like
she’s a woman. Like, do you still love me.
She takes her time, considers this,
reaches a manicured hand inside her pocketbook
and pulls out two hard caramel candies.
We suck the sweetness until they melt,
play gin rummy on the sofa while the sun sets.
Marlena Chertock has two books of poetry, Crumb-sized: Poems (Unnamed Press) and On that one-way trip to Mars (Bottlecap Press). She is queer, disabled, and uses her skeletal dysplasia as a bridge to scientific poetry. Her poetry and prose has appeared in AWP’s The Writer’s Notebook, Breath & Shadow, The Deaf Poets Society, Lambda Literary Review, Little Patuxent Review, Paper Darts, Paranoid Tree, Washington Independent Review of Books, WMN Zine, Wordgathering, and more. Find her at marlenachertock.com and @mchertock.