Zefyr Lisowski
A Litany / Summer Box
after Natalie Eilbert
My flesh perfect, flecked
with men. Memory goes running
along the memory beach.
I make a box to contain me,
and don’t eat much.
That summer, he said
he was keeping
us both safe, so I didn’t
say anything—
Men line up in rows
like a series of fiddler crabs, and I put them all in the box.
Whenever someone says, “he”: they go in the box.
Whenever someone says, “I”: they go in the box.
If anyone mentions the box: they go in the box.
I call the box, “box.”
Beget it to me.
_______________
Each man dives deep,
exploring foundations of reef,
and they are all cold.
The details of my body are boring,
an alphabet of fingers.
Before I was betrayed, I was what.
I take baths every other night;
I count the men in the box.
Should I die, I hope they write,
she liked finger foods.
Not because it’s true,
but because it sounds pretty.
I don’t know what I like,
my desires unknown to me even now.
The men all swim in and out
of summer. What I really like
is still nameless. Alcohol swilling
in the mouth. The seaside
at night, its viscousness.
Despite my best attempts,
there is nothing fishlike
about me, but that
can be a kind of beauty too.
What did I learn
my summer of unraveling?
When I see a man
I reach toward them,
pull out their shard
and press it into me.
This is what I like:
the beach. Its bricolage
of waves
falling,
refusal to rise.
I walk on the reef.
I don’t tell anyone what I see.
Rape Fantasy
TW: rape
The rape fantasy was that actually, nothing happened. I waited weeks for our first date, full of anticipation, swallowing loudly at every encounter—the hallway, the classroom, the patch of woods behind campus. He gave me food I didn’t have to pay for and slipped several fingers inside of me, The Princess Diaries 2 on his dorm room tv. He talked about how strong he was and how much I couldn’t leave and how I would take it and then slept on the floor, worried I didn’t have enough room on the bed. Body at my feet a root system. His beard like tiny teeth.
When I leave in the morning I look three times before crossing the street—mountain roads sleek with rain and ribbon-like. I walk home in the fog. I don’t call my mom. Look, the fantasy is that this happened how I’m remembering it. He didn’t call afterwards. He was polite. I walk past my house three times that morning without even seeing it. Look, I took a shower but it didn’t come out. The trees this time of year are so pretty. I am changing only because I want to.
Zefyr Lisowski is an artist, writer, and double Pisces currently based in NYC. An editor at Apogee Journal, she teaches and studies at Hunter College; her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Muzzle, The Tiny, Bone Bouquet, and the Texas Review. She is very gay. Find her online @zefrrrrrrr or at zeflisowski.com.