Poetry By Carling Berkhout

White Noise

The light pollution intrudes through the harsh space
between the plastic window shades,
striping my room like a barcode.
I let the artificial glow
caress the cement ceiling
while the sirens paint my walls
vermillion.

What does it mean to be healthy,
I have asked my nutritionist more than once.
I’ve been looking into seeing a therapist,
but I can’t tell what they do yet.

The cars on north west market street
are white noise
and I think about his hands on my hips
and the Marlboro woman I keep running into
at the 8th and 50th bus stop.
She tells me her last three houses burned down.
Lit cigarettes
and antique medallion rugs.

I’m not saying goodbye yet, but
I’m not sure I’ll know when I have to leave.

Marlboro woman told me last week about her ex-husband
who never taught her guitar.
She asks if I’m any good.
I say not really.
She asks if I have any jokes,
I say not many –– 
never liked a good comedy –– 
but I tell the story of how my cat rotted
to death.

My thoughts blend in to the north west market street
white noise
and all I can think about is how sometimes when you’re alone
in the city
the light pollution isn’t light enough,
and how other times
                                when you need it to
it never gets completely dark.
I go to find Marlboro woman on 8th
because it seems I have missed the bus again.

​



Flightless Gosling

the geese fly south as a crooked vee
to the slit of marmalade sun
in between the outline
of the green mountains
and the stratus clouds

I am not one to watch the birds
but when their silhouettes dance at dusk
I think of the way my father
used to twirl my mother in the kitchen
before she, too, flew

sometimes the trees look like splintered bones
against a blood red November sunset
and I tell myself, Carling,
how beautiful it is that the wind howls bedtime lullabies  
and that shadows can waltz just like your father

I am not scared of the dark
but as the geese are swallowed by the moonless night
my thoughts are written as eulogies
for a past that clenches my spine so tightly with white knuckles
that my legs feel as though they will give out at the knee

​



The Art of Dentistry

there’s a weird intimacy
in the art
of dentistry
but when my dreams concern
rotten molars escaping from pursed lips
with vertigo undertones
I don’t think about how badly
I want to fuck my dentist.

I thought about becoming a dentist
once.
I research the qualifications
of bony enamel enthusiasts
on a ‘how to become a dentist’ website,
probably written by someone
who works a convenience store job:              
              I.             enroll in a bachelor’s degree program
              II.            take the dental admission test
              III.           earn a dental degree
              IV.           obtain licensure
              V.             consider a specialization

I specialize in having nightmares of strangling somebody
but I don’t mean to.
sometimes it’s a stranger.
sometimes it’s not.
but I don’t mean to.
I specialize in sucking in air through my nose,
so much so that I can see
the ridge of my ribs
against my horripilated skin
--
is it illegal to touch my body I do not know.

I drew a picture of my brain
when I was seven
and sectioned off different parts with what I thought about most.
the impending death of my father
occupied the most space
and the hatred for my feminine identity
saturated the rest.
I think about bodies a lot.
I think about the space mine takes up
and the space it does not.

I take the 44 bus to work
and I take the 44 bus home
and I make myself look miserable
by simultaneously watching my semi-opaque reflection
in the window
and the headlights of passerbys beyond it.
I learned this trick when living in Washington D.C.
because people look at you less
when they think they have less to look at.
I take the 44 bus to work
and I take the 44 bus home.

The last time I dreamt
my teeth were falling out
was the first night I slept alone,
falling asleep to the lullaby of sirens
and mumbling the songs my father used to sing to me.
my teeth detached from my gums
but instead of spitting them out,
I choked.

​

​

Amphibious War

He gives me a worm again
and it’s already my fourth one
because the fish
keep biting and my arm is too stiff
to reel them in.

He says,
you are not
the best fisherman and I go
to tell him I have never
fished before

but suddenly I am in a creek
that reminds me of my mother’s womb
and I am tangled in a line
with a worm hovering above my head
but I cannot reach it.

He reels me in and says something
about the fish not biting
so we go to a country store
where my feet keep breaking
through the floorboards.

A man wearing a black suit
looks like my father from behind
and he tells me not to worry
and I tell him
he needs to get his floors fixed.

The sky is blood red when I wake up & my room is too.
There’s a Bright Eyes song humming in my ears –– 
if you walk away, I’ll walk away ––
then a bird’s mundane morning is unpleasantly halted
as its body dances into my windowpane.

​

Bio: Carling Berkhout is a writer and musician, currently studying at Bennington College with a focus on the illustration/construction of girlhood, boyhood, and womanhood. The majority of her creative work deals with understanding identity and body within a gendered society. She is also a clawhammer banjo player who performs regularly as a duo under the name Carling & Will. Her work has appeared in Quail Bell Magazine and Fretboard Journal. Website: carlingberkhout.com

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