Poetry by Jessica Lawson

                            Alexandru Paraschiv CC

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The Shell    &    The Wing




i wonder if the photograph floats
                                 a temporary glitch in falling that turns the whole ass world
                                                                                                                     underwater


                       i ask a question and you lift the shell once more to my ear                            


you gentle the photograph with upward thumb            
                                        a kind of beautiful that lies on its side 
                  till it remembers its own paper 
                                                                  and slips through       the seam of the room


                                                                 i ask you a question and the shell
                                                                 stays in place as if having moved


    the photograph of my lips and shoulders      which i know you like       do you like                       
                 me or the photograph               it is fucked
                                                                                  you have told me where your thumb goes
       it dances my part         soft long   against you            frenzy’s compact pocket           
                                                                             this narrow
                                                                 space of my absence       
i wonder       what human water you’ve spent        thrusting my face out of the way
                                            i turn you on       splitting the quiet air 
                                                                                           exiting the world once you’re done


                                                           i ask you this question with particular care
                                              the shell rotates        i cough out a hollow hour of wonder
                                                            whether it moved in a pattern i can read
                                                                         or your hand simply got tired


                                                                                                      i never told you this:   the first time 
                                                                                                                                         i shook your hand
                                i shook myself to splinters in the bed two hours later
                                                  tucking a wish into night’s pocket
                                                                                                                           like a penny for later


                                                         i ask you the question and you lift my chin to it
                                                                        my ear cupped in animal sworl
                                                        it spirals cream ridges outward from your palm
                                                        i try to listen past the shell’s hoarded store of air
                                                              hear the blood moving through your fingers


my question is like                           a photograph of a bird trapped in a room
in a still its beauty is stuffed with purpose we impart
                            only to creatures we pretend more free than us
                                                                          i can’t capture that flight is a race to outrun
        my own skeleton      splatter my panic in gusts against this human wall
                                         every time i ask the well to love me back

this is not a way to treat an animal


                                                           i ask you the question    each cold edge
                                         of the shell scrapes “not my mouth” in microscopic script
                                                                 cells my cheek will flake off later


                             confess: you are offering              the shell as my new home

is this your way of trying             to make me safe        or make me smaller


                                            i rehearse ungiven kisses against the inside of my teeth
                                                                                whisper please
                                                                 fly into you like a closed window






i ask the plasma tech to forgive me for not being a bird.


               i. 
                            A mother nests in a tree of needles. Keep skin smooth and report every bruise.
                            A hatchling opens to blind command. The needle slips right in.

                            I donate plasma which makes my friends healthy, my friends who depend on
                            plasma donations, except I don’t do it to make them healthy, I do it for the money.
                            I’m glad they are okay. My plasma gestures in the direction of their dispersed
                            need. There is no real chance that mine is the body keeping theirs alive. I wish I
                            could do this in their living rooms. 

                            Bird wings are hollow. Otherwise no flight. Like being made of sharps. 

                  
                  ii.
                             My veins and I are thin and I’ve been bruised enough that the techs know to pass
                             me along to whomever has the best hands that shift. I apologize for the faulty
                             equipment I offer them. I bleed fast and well, at least, but it’s not like that’s a
                             thing I can try to do. 

                             My donation is calculated by weight. Each visit I cradle footfalls on the scale and
                             Gravity declares what I will give up. Gravity sets his briefcase down and gives the
                             command. I lie in the donor bed. The tech punches buttons on the machine next to
                             me. A digital display 825mL appears. 

                             The large bird is a tongue of metal. She struggles to pierce my blood line. If I
                              knew the muscle to tense, I would unlatch my vein’s jaw so it could eat the
                              needle. Hungry gulps of puncture. I want to open like a beak for her. I want to get
                              this over. The line goes clear to red. I flow beautifully, the plasma tech says. The
                              machine chews my blood and gives it back to me. A mother must process worms
                              along the way. 

                              My down shakes as the needle shoves cold dollars in my body. I bleed fast and
                              well because of course I do. 
                              

                  iii.
                              The muscle in my chest knocks its walls. When my car engine knocks, I know it
                              needs more oil. I wait to buy 5W-20 until a warning light comes on. My veins
                              flash at me. I check the manual. There is a leak somewhere, too costly to repair.

                               My donation is calculated by weight, but it is not graduated. Up to a certain
                               weight the donation is 690mL of plasma, then 825mL for the next 30lbs of body
                               weight, then more after that. The tech punches buttons and 825mL appears. I
                               surprise her, giving this much. I am within a pound or two of the lower donation.
                               My body is as small as it can be and still be asked to offer this much. 

                               For three days after donations my palpitations spike. My heart knocks off-time
                               like a persistent solicitor. I can’t think straight against its tempo. 


                  iv.
                               In the video “Eugene Ranks Every Astrological Sign from Best to Worst,” my ear
                               catches on the notion that mutable fire, the Sagittarius elemental state, might be
                               like plasma. That’s what Eugene says, though he doesn’t mean the plasma I sell
                               twice a week. I am a Sagittarius and, as such, am much too much, a horse that
                               leaves a stream of shit in her glorious path. My children don’t think that’s funny
                               but I do. They ask to see the video where Eugene ranks fruit. It reminds them of
                               fruit existing. I turn the cans in the cupboard so we can read them as they
                               disappear. We open the pears tonight and imagine together that Eugene is our
                               friend. These are guilty pleasures.

                               In the plasma tube, little bubbles dance a minute before being dragged into
                               resolution by the machine’s suction. It is a deep, used yellow. It looks like
                               champagne. Some untapped luxury in me that I don’t know till I’ve sold it.


                  v.
                               In a needle         tree my bones           vomit their matter. 
                                                                                                                                                       They hollow. 
                               Little empty        cylinders of femur           and humerus. 
                                                                                                                                              The last       human straw.



                  vi.
                               This month the pricing changed. The needle pumps $30 into my body. The bills
                               rustle in my interior wind. 

                               I can’t attempt flight. My bones are still too much. I pour motor oil through them.
                               My heart eases for three more days.

                               I make a deal with Gravity to ask even less of him. My footstep gentles the scale.
                               Air swims the minor margin of my body in retreat. I am lighter now, by a pound
                               or so. Gravity nods at the skipped meal. I make do with less of me so I won’t be
                               asked to give as much. The tech punches buttons and 690mL appears. 

                               The needle touches my side and I race forward, dripping bloodwater in my horse
                               path. It’s in the nature of my sign. 


                  vii.
                               At home each night I lay        the pepper and the garlic          side by side. 
                               The stove takes a loan      from the lighter. I knob the flame          to middle high.

                                I think about the power of prayer        and bite the flesh pit of my elbow. 
                                I work fast in facefuls of          freshly ungated blood. 
                                                                                                                Bruise               a quiet new moon.

                                Collection calls          for a siphoning.

                                I pull the water from my veins. 
                                I pour it in the soup broth. 
                                It lasts another day.​


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Jessica Lawson (she/her/hers) is Denver-based writer, teacher, and activist. Her debut book of poetry, Gash Atlas (forthcoming 2021), was selected by judge Erica Hunt for the Kore Press Institute Poetry Prize, and her chapbook Rot Contracts appeared summer 2020 (Trouble Department). A Pushcart-nominated poet, her creative writing has appeared in The Rumpus; Entropy; Dreginald; Yes, Poetry; The Wanderer; Cosmonauts Avenue; and elsewhere. She is currently at work on her second book project, a portrait of bodily vulnerability at the intersection of poverty, sex, and trauma.

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