repetition compulsion
I write high literary prose. -- a novelist, on differences of register
"the repetition-compulsion...revives experiences of the past that contain no
potentiality of pleasure" -- Sigmund Freud, trans. CJM Hubback
i write low guttural poetry,
like i have to go all the way
downstairs to get it
it's beneath me
like this guy i dated
once said about the women
he dated
i mean i could talk about
the swamp and the lily
the healing power of fungus
the fractal rhizomatic underbelly
that nourishes us so tenderly
it's just that i haven't been
inside my body lately
and it's starting to wear
me down the street. today
it walked me like a dog,
sniffed at every tree square,
aren't we a pair, the soft
animal and the hardy
machine, or are we a trio
animated by light?
i've known two muscular men
with sun tattoos who held me
close and eclipsed. black sun i
drink and drink in. you should
get a tattoo of the moon. do
you climb back into your
body if it conjures him? i
block you in media res
and then see you down
the street. people need
me in small doses only.
when a bad thing stops
happening is it a bad thing
to think of small un-bad things
like snails on the path or
when you let me touch your
face in the fridge-light?
winter is a quality of sound,
an apex of silence hitting at
5 pm Sunday. i take solace
in solstice, its promise of
darkness. the return of light
past 4 pm gives me SAD.
at 9 am Tuesday an SUV
blocks me from crossing.
it's like the fable of three
brothers competing to find
the keys to the kingdom,
the first two go past the seer
in the road who hails them
but the third one stops, goes
'what,' and the seer goes,
'keys are over there.'
it's like a metaphysical
conceit but the yoked
elements slip free. it's
an SUV whose driver
doesn't see me. so i walk
through the alley in the
shadow of a dumpster.
a Hummer hit my bike and
gave me wings! my last 4 heart-
breaks happened in summer.
all roads eddy out to open sea.
identity politics
i'm flaked out, swastika'ed
like a lack of supremacy,
geometric like a fine-toothed
comb. my screen is cracked
from looking at you funny.
the cracks are superficial
but they run deep, fissures
fixing to slice a finger if
you probe too insistently.
it takes finesse to slip
between the cracks. can you
find the true node, strong
and free? o canada i bury
myself in your yards of glass.
blue gabardine
do you tend to the wound or
the scar? if i live by the sea
when i go out would panic
hold a candle to my mouth?
maybe the ideal apartment
is a micro-logement on a
Ferris wheel in front of a
skating rink, stopped high
while the Zamboni stately
blanks the slate of ice. once
my friend burned her hand
but didn't feel it. it doesn't
hurt till someone says
your hand is in the fire.
Rebecca Rustin is a freelance writer and translator in Montreal, Quebec on Haudenosaunee land.