What Pleasure, by Lane Fields |
|
Sitting on the stone steps overlooking the courtyard, the first poet I ever loved asked me if I had been abused, too. She said she saw it in my eyes. No one in my twenty-one years had named the raw gift of my writing before she did, so I told her no. Janice squeezed my hand twice before standing up & walking away. The grove in the valley of the mountain shouldered a soft breeze. Everything was warm because it was summer. We drank boxed wine on the patio & danced until two. A poem has to be about something so let it be about this: my father did unspeakable things. I am grown now but still wake with nausea burning my chest, cold sweat that dapples my temples. I dream the unbearable weight of his body, feel it whenever I sit down to write or hear the wind in the trees. What pleasure will ever belong to me? The mountains, those Carolina summers, this body— |
Lane Fields is a queer, trans poet living in Boston and an MFA candidate at Warren Wilson College. Their poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Hobart, Yemassee, Interim, Moist, Palette Poetry, and others. You can follow them on Instagram at @lane.fields or Twitter at @ohwowitslane.