March 7, 2022
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Somatic Overheated Room, 2020
By Ellen McGrath Smith
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Somatic Overheated Room, 2020
By Ellen McGrath Smith
1/
she's not a zebra
she's not a xylophone
rather
an unfeathered
cockatiel
molten on Fifth Avenue
in a winter of alpha wolves
eviscerating sheep
before they eviscerate each other
just drawing those guts from the asteroid cavities
onto the street where they steam gleam gray pink
soon will stink in the quivering light
soon will wriggle like worms
from their asteroid centers like so many questions
2/
But you know what? She suffers
her sweater's absorption of sweat
sipping silk
through the resolute straw
of her neck
squawking out
from her tropical cage
near the radiator's
overheated tripes
Wear layers, they said
Keep your feathers, they said
(though she craves to be
even more naked craves
sailing in a mild April
breeze calls out to the humans
through the painted-shut windows
I'm a tropical bird
but for chrissakes you don't need to crank it up
hotter than hell with the moon waxing gib
as the president freaks freaks us out
just some water
to unparch just some answers just some air please
3/
(a new word order)
If you release me from this cage, I might
make fans from wings to cool the room,
put feathers back on bones to make the bird
I used to be, approximate the wind
through movement. Give me that much freedom, please.
The alpha wolves eviscerate the sheep
in daylight, draw those guts into the street—
they steam, they gleam gray-pink.
Soon they will stink.
4/
This aviary you must not politicize
These politics you must not politicize
You must never point out power
point out simulated tropics
point out polar bears
don't hibernate
when ice
shrinks
—So then let me fly to safer climes climb the mast to keep
the sky from falling or simply open up my cage that I might make fans
of my wings gather up my fallen feathers organize them into a whole
other bird capable of transcending her environment
let it happen let it go
the gaslighting the evisceration
as if it all were children playing in a park beneath the benevolent gaze
of a nanny with a green card so green a new tree's planted every day
that she wakes up on U.S. soil each tree throbbing with blossoms
each tree pledging allegiance to the earth
Ellen Smith
Ellen McGrath Smith, who has taught and done manuscript consultation with Zoeglossia, and also teaches at the University of Pittsburgh and in the Madwomen in the Attic program at Carlow University. Her poetry has appeared in The Georgia Review, The New York Times, The American Poetry Review, Los Angeles Review, and other journals and anthologies. Books include Scatter, Feed (Seven Kitchens 2014) and Nobody's Jackknife (West End Press 2015). Follow her on Facebook and Twitter and check out her blog and website.
Image Description: Ellen feeling cute against a floral patterned background with orange patterned pillow. She is white, freckled, with wavy salt and pepper hair, soft gray T-shirt falling loosely off one shoulder.