i promise, anna, hagfish are cute, trust me, just a little
Liam Strong
non-hoax cheesecloth, ghosts of maggots who forget their pasts
as easy as rain
over the Pacific. your Pacific. we’re fish tape thread
through Laura
Palmer’s brain. we’re chordate, nothing gets to us, we’re shit
out of luck
because who needs it. the weeping
pines, canvas
jackets wrapped tight like vertebrae or chain. i guess
chains are often
loose, our skulls are dark inside because the sun
would burn
what’s within, & not every
-one will
call us darling. at the bottom of the ocean, someone has got
to be a top.
i’m not kidding. but who’s kidding, really, besides me—there’s
less light
to work with than we’d usually need. churches don’t stay
open late
anymore, after all, so there’s better places to go, finally, i can’t feed
on dead
end paths forever, & you’re ready to be an un
-tangled mess. which
isn’t a mess at all, something communal, Marxist, ichor from the
broken
jaw of what we’re too scared to say out loud, to see each
other’s reactions, blood
-less vermin eating what too should be called vermin, but
aren’t, us also
at the bottom. we have more at our disposal when air
& sight
are out of the equation. you can tie the overhand knot for the both of
us. it’s a long
way down, or up, or whatever direction we want
to call
it, because i can’t hold my breath patiently, i have one
throat, &
i’m tired of not keeping it
open.
a lack of parsnips
lined like roots made of roots
a parallelism of dust
devils given all that
we bury our living
seeds consider that
to sow a fetus into the sod
what amount of prayer would exhume
a child suppose the parsnip
yearned for purpose beyond consumption
the spiral of its spine drilling for
earth’s center something it
can reach that isn’t
in the stars suppose how the winter
frosts the parsnip taproot
with a syrup in the form
of promise to think that even
spring is a kind of killing
where tiny yellow umbels are afraid
to flower that sugar could calve
limestone snowdrops of cream
lonely between beet & carrot
to think that despite our impatience
some hidden whorl of sweetness
grows when nothing else will
in defense of uncleanliness
after “You’re My Best Friend” by Queen
live now honey
there’s such a thing as too much salt, James
the mirror in my bathroom is so small
i can’t see below my elbows so let me use
your eyes let you be my
mirror you’re all
i see i’m thinking too much about how
we own the same sweater how you call it blue
how i call it spotted how it’s all snow
that melts when it speckles Lake Michigan
do you think the clouds know they will get their
rain or shine back do they grieve
for their friends as they wander around the sky
help me forgive that coldness when i said
we should coordinate days it isn’t right i don’t
want to be you because that’s wanting to be a boy
again i’ve been with you
such that my ribs are reaching for you
the best snowfall i ever saw happened when the smog
of Traverse City resined the night as
if peaches fell from the vertebrae of the storm
listen i’m used to this to evading laundry whatever
this world can give to you don’t
take it i held my mouth open
for snowflakes to float into & i would make warmth
don’t you ever look at rain clouds & say
come back
that’s how i feel about this sweater debacle
if you’re happy we share this one
likeness my only one i’ll put it in the wash
first every week
Liam Strong (they/them) is a queer neurodivergent straight edge punk writer who has earned their BA in writing from University of Wisconsin-Superior. They are the author of the chapbook Everyone’s Left the Hometown Show (Bottlecap Press, 2023). You can find their poetry and essays in Vagabond City and new words {press}, among several others. They are most likely gardening and listening to Bitter Truth somewhere in Northern Michigan. Find them on Instagram/Twitter: @beanbie666
The Tomahawk Creek Review 