Poetry by Jess Kadish

      Pete Birkinshaw CC




Not gay as in happy but queer as in

after I fall, this is what happens: I’m on my back 
at the asphalt’s edge, so close to the grass,
like a blocked beach whose water I can’t touch. 
I can’t move, so they move to me. My wife paces
by my feet, back and forth between fear and force,
her voice quavering evidence to the dispatcher. 
My friend takes my head in her lap, so gently 
I think my skull is floating, moves her fingers 
over my scalp like a baker kneading alone 
at 4 am, all rhythmic certainty and quiet focus. 
The sky flushes bruise-blue. Someone swats 
a mosquito away from me before it can land. 
I’m scared.  An acquaintance approaches, says, 
I got you, buddy, what do you need and I say, 
Tell me about your dates again, didn’t you say 
you had some dates this week and then they’re 
with me on the ground, phone in hand, and we’re 
kids stretched out on the sand and I think I’ve 
never seen such beautiful thumbnailed faces before. 
OOOOOOH and oh no oh no oh no and 
COME ON NOW and why can’t I move and 
LOOK! AT! THEM! and what is happening to me 
and then the sirens come. A delirious cackle tears 
through me and becomes a howl as I’m lifted 
into what comes next. Fingertips still in my hair. As in,
I am dough in my people’s hands until it’s time to rise.





Morphology

Apple sits solid in a sunlit bowl,
swirls liquid in a golden glass.

Same substance, but one contains itself
calmly in your palm and the other is a crack 

away from running sticky rivers over your wrist.
One protects its sweet tenderness with roughage, 

lets tough fibrous casing hold it together. The other 
casts defenses aside, leaves its sugar open 

to the sky, invites you in. But then, so does the first,
doesn’t it? The skin asks to be bitten. The solid sphere

and the filled glass both crave your hand.
And what of your hand that lifts both fruit and juice

to your waiting mouth?
And what of your mouth?





Oh, to unzip this skin

and walk awhile without it.
I’d fold it neatly 
at the foot of the bed 
and step outside.
Brick on muscle,
pavement on bone.
It’d be sharp, even searing,
but I think I’d like it— 
all that feeling.
Goldfinches at the feeder
of my lungs.
Hummingbirds sipping
my synovial fluid.
The trouble would be
zipping back up.
What to do with the debris
lodged in the once unexposed
parts of me?

​


Jess Kadish's poetry has also appeared in Kissing Dynamite and Hooligan. She’s a member of Chicago’s 2nd Story collective, where she writes, curates, and directs personal narrative performance. You can hear some of her stories on their podcast. She started writing when she should have been paying attention in class and still writes most freely when she's supposed to be paying attention to something else.