An Espresso Spoon For Every Failed Iteration of Self
Robin tells me they collect tiny
spoons & I feel something tinged with envy. I
don’t keep enough of myself anymore—
the bits & bobs I’d stuff into the doorjambs
of my childhood home are now left to fester
in their wooden frames. The doors no longer
close (& I know this is metaphor). Now
I weave threads of projected
narrative through sweaters with missing
buttons & hope no one
catches on.
Robin tells me it started with their ex-boyfriend,
an espresso spoon as collateral—
could’ve been your collateral, too,
when your sex refuses instruction & your first
boyfriend, a butcher from Queens
says he can be a girl for you, then dreams
your right thigh on the meat hook
& the blood nearly drowns the mashgiach
(this is his way of saying he’s suffocating).
Robin takes tiny spoons & I leave behind disagreeables—
a kidney stone in a Hoboken bathroom
a pair of gold hoops on a Newark nightstand
a flyer for an Alzheimer’s study in a law school dorm
a single carnation birthed from bellybutton lint
in the backseat of a 2001 Subaru Forester—
we balance each other this way.
Rachel Stempel is a genderqueer Ukrainian-Jewish poet and PhD candidate in English at Binghamton University. They are the author of the chapbooks Interiors (Foundlings Press, 2021) and BEFORE THE DESIRE TO EAT (Finishing Line Press, 2022). They currently live in New York with their rabbit, Diego.
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