2 poems
by Spencer Williams
Spencer Williams is currently an MFA candidate at Rutgers University-Newark. She is the author of Alien Pink (The Atlas Review Chapbook Series, 2017) and has work featured in or forthcoming from [PANK], Powder Keg, Bat City Review, and Always Crashing. She tweets mostly nonsense @burritotheif
I Call the Rape a Rape
and first, there is the nothing sound
a mouth makes around a finger,
the wet string a finger makes upon
leaving the mouth. There is the slur
that names this hole faggot, the shape
a tongue takes to the dirt. Prayer knees,
scraping. Then, the music of bruise. Of hard
red lines. The memory like a wrist guided
back towards the seam. The fresh pluck
of skin. Of kill. I call the rape a rape
and the funeral drips
out of me: I call the rape
a rape
and break
again over
the cliff
of his knee. I say his name
and taste dry
wood. Touch
myself, cum
termites
on my back.
Say it back to me now,
how in the clearing
there was me,
and him and a branch
that gored
my throat.
Louder
still, the word
love inside
my faggot
mouth.
On Walking the Trail with Alex After the Service
Among the waste of trees perched near the water tower, songbirds choke on strands of brown hair, mistaking them for worms. As we climb towards the hull, we smell them in the branches, wet, riddled with lice. I turn to you and ask about your life, dodging the ex you wear like a harness. You looked so happy in the photos. And then he was not in them. Even when the end arrived, I couldn’t picture it you say, as if I know. This is where I am now: watching you cup your hands around a pair of soiled wings we found together, on the edge of the footpath. You comb the shapes as though, with just two fingers, you could right the splintered bones. But one splint gores the skin and bleeds it. I say here, suck your new hole clean. I do not mean to. I want to tell you about me so badly. About my trip to the ER and how insignificant it felt to go home. The sun was out at the wake, you say, remember that smell? Yes. Of dark fabrics turning wet because each limb was crying. In the fog of you, my fingers curl around aura. The sun did not come here with us today. From where we stand, your town is a series of miniature blocks. I heard you rarely leave the house these days. It’s like he’s hiding, a mutual friend remarked. But it is not hiding if we loom over everyone. I don't know how to tell you this. I don't know how to tell you anything but sorry.