Poetry by T Brannigan

               ricky shore CC



in pursuit of grey matter 

I.
like marriages, bodies rot from the inside 
out, vital organs disintegrate into a gurgling sea of 
atoms, plus the  0.111958 percent left unaccounted for that walter white 
tells me is grey
matter: an elegy to something                   within us that is more
human yet than nuclei drifting in cavernous absence.

walter white, who admitted to his wife in the final moments of his
unraveling, what every woman learned long ago: 
her future was always disposable, collateral
damage in service of his own terminal              ego.
he liked it, he says, her ruination           he was alive.

his body will chase his life into the embrace of death,                leaving
his wife to atone for the decay erupting from his putrid chest
boiling over 
unburied,           on sun-burnt asphalt.
when you spit on his corroded flesh, will you level your reproachful gaze at her?

the departure of tiredlazyneglectfulabusive men raises them to the forsaken
one last fuck you, you’re probably imagining the stench                            sickening
your stomach. 

       II.

the snow shoveled to the side of the road is still bright
white, beneath the corpses of my father’s                      supplicants, lovers, vows to each
lie                           in patient equilibrium, awaiting their decomposition
in the spring. 

when the thaw comes for their frozen tits and haunted faces,
tired skin sagging downdowndown into the slush,
the rotting of the lies is slow                  without a burning
sun to do the job, mama has no choice but play coroner

to the life they share  d  ad is this why you screamed at me when i left ice trays to melt on the 
counter? please just tell us where the bodies are

there is certainly nothing between my father’s atoms
no, that space is wide open                       inviting
mama to reach and try and she steps forward he steps back step forward step back
in/to his gaping emptiness 

i wonder if walter white knows that grey matter regulates emotions/
decision making/self control/in other words, the choice to fuck a thirty year old in the work
vehicle my dad wasn’t allowed to pick me up from school in.
grey matter tempers ego and without it stitching his atoms, memories, family together 
it must be so relaxing for the disintegration to begin
he is unbeholden 

      III.

my father’s family doesn’t do funerals. 
but mama and i go
together, fingers pressing everything that should have been into soft spring soil             grasping and
comforting,         we rise on shaky knees to return in tandem
home                    to his endless company 

where we are mother and daughter, not
whoever               we were sitting on the bench in front of the river 
holding hands and waiting for snow.

suppliant, parity, equilibrium, disintegration, decay, putrefy, unravel. yawning, cavernous,
carnivorous, shrinking, rebirth. ​



T Brannigan (she/her) is a queer poet and junior at New York University.