When I said yes to men, and I did, in the way of pulling loose the fog, by Reece Gritzmacher
Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash
When I said yes to men, and I did, in the way of pulling loose the fog,
switching the sign from No Trespass to Watch Your Step, I cooked—
The frying pan gone blacker, oil turnt ember turnt charcoal. The kitchen
inhaled the smoke.
Arizona doesn’t want bureaucratic busybodies, doesn’t want to see you
at the DMV any more than you want to see them. So here’s a license
for thirty years. See you, see you, see you.
While I slept, which was not quite restful, after we did not sleep but did so
in my bed together, his body saw a knife and a hospital
had to uncollapse his breathing vessel. Our union didn’t cause such
disaster, but fell just two eves prior. One reason for a night to become
an exception/a/one/night/sum.
I had thought I never wanted to be held by a lover, but he kept lifting me
and I kept liking it. My legs and arms clutching him closer.
When California came calling in the form of a superlike then supernice and
supersweet, I superflooded the cup with crush, and ate the bread
though it was crumbs. And when I told California I wasn’t sure how much
longer I could do this: This (a noun) fluid, undefined, the sweetest talking unrequital
He cried, and I stayed stone, already months undone by erosion,
a valley made by glaciers, a heaping stack of unreturned messages.
And then his question came:
Is there any hope?
I didn’t say I’m all hope, all 60% ocean of me, all limestone cliffs on the brink of zero,
all sphinx moth at the mural of flowers winging for nectar.
I didn’t tell California I uprooted my life for hope, left watery air and
my then love for butterscotch bark and a larger community of words.
I didn’t tell him I walk through night thick with lack of light, move
through black with steady feet that believe in ground
a faith in juniper ponderosa-infused oxygen, a wish for white winter
and monsoon summer in my every step.
Instead, I pointed California to a sober wall of words with a gate that squeaks.
Beautiful, I told him, Not without serious change.
The truth is I live landlocked, apart from all lakes and coasts of my childhood
all cold creeks of my heart. The truth is I keep my ocean, keep the tide
of my body in tune with the moon held close by earth. I tell the single nights
and months and years I can’t be spoiled; I do that myself.
All I ever wanted was everything,
I don’t tell these men who don’t need to be men to feel my love.
All I ever wanted was—
Reece Gritzmacher lives in a mountain town surrounded by ponderosa pines, but grew up hugging trees in the Pacific Northwest. Their poetry and prose has appeared or is forthcoming on Sundog Lit, Bending Genres, Bloodletter, Rejection Letters, and elsewhere.