Two Poems By Will Summay
Rhapsody
he says cumming is a disappearing act; I prove it
wrong; boyhoods counterpoint
taut to the edges
to find that god is gone, no doubt
to smite or sabbath his own lips; & what is left?
an ecology of—;
fingertips wading through the spores of night, ending
up back against the walls
of our chests, covens of hairs, fungi circumambulating our sternums,
so to speak;
mycelium is not a thing; fruiting & consuming centuries
of homes into new
homes into new
homes that are not walls
nor ceilings nor who washes
the dishes tonight,
but all
small fragments of rotted care—
phosphorus for the blooms,
nitrogen for the night,
keeping our eyes open to
make love
like this, while we crawl inside
one another like this—
what I am trying to prove to you
is that I do not need to see you
to god again; some days I shroom
through the Calvin Klein underwear dirts;
or the Françoise Hardy thicken-the-blood prayers;
or the dreams we dream of the day we die
into that bio-fretwork
more queer than thing,
more revelation than name,
more otherwise than us.
I Am Trying To Write A Poem About Loneliness & Farrokhzad
but the geese won’t stop
staring, their dark-marbled eyes carrying worlds
of hot steel opportunities,
obstructing pedestrian & cyclists
along the shit-stained channel of the Heritage trail,
because I think they want me to know
that they will outlive us, their bodied tours
of adaptations; one page to another, which is how
Farough did it—see? I did it. I found her a way
into the lines...well, the uncanny-Farrokhzad,
the English one, which means she is exiled.
The only Arabic I know is al-wahsh (the monster) because
I studied in Bethlehem where the Palestinian children
rose like dark-haired dawns
out of the playground again & again, my claws
& snarls following them (which is too easy a metaphor)
as they defy me with laughter over & over:
al-wahsh, you’ll never catch us,
al-wahsh—the geese hiss at me,
mock my falling off the bike as I avoid them,
which reminds me that humiliation
might be my only ticket out.
About the Author
Will Summay (he/him) is a poet and psychotherapist based in Kentucky. He has been previously published in the Michigan Quarterly Review (forthcoming), Seaford Review, Queerlings, Volume Poetry, Stone Of Madness, among others.