THREE POEMS by SIOBHAN HART
But They Have Passed into The World as Abstractions
after Georgia o'KEEFFEEverything is duller
when photographed —
when I photograph the painting
the brightness
of the white ridge
dims, damn it!
I say — I was looking
for pure representation.
I’ve started wearing smocks
while I write
so I remember
to collect and transfer
images,
not just ideas.
ART — NOW !
All of the girls here
wear identically
baggy pants.
The bag level is identical,
not the pants.
They come in many shades.
They are saying
something about coherent visibility
without speaking.
The low hum of human voice
halts
perhaps
to correct me.
If I was better at looking
like a boy
I wouldn’t be corrected,
and I’d more
adequately relate
to O’Keeffe’s charcoal
hearts.
I’m starting to ask
myself, is that really
what I think?
When my most familiar
voice talks. See, it takes time,
but
less belief in myself
yields kindnesses
to others.
And my pants are baggy too.
I’m trying to present being
something
so other people — certain
people— see it,
without having to look
too close.
But then, I want
them to look closer,
fresh wet eye
on the glass
of my outer form, letting
themselves grow liquid
in the horror
I know best.
I say I have a fever
like no one else
has had a fever.
I say I like this painting
to everyone else
who likes the painting.
I only photograph
the descriptions
and only the descriptions
that quote the artist
themselves.
They suckle
the ends of words,
I’m remembering to include
an image of a cowboy
with a toothpick
hanging from his
red mouth, I admit
I’m not careful
with my own,
lacking tact, splintering
end rhymes.
Finding the right
ones should
be less a way of hiding
than a way of showing
face.
I show mine
to myself
in the brief hollow
of a painting case.
The ridge
is bright
and endless.
what i want to get
across is the real hate
i have, for everyone,
in my heart, or really just
some people i feel equal
levels of pity for.
so i pray & hate
myself in order to avoid
those conversations.
conversations often go
like this:
do you like this?
is that nice?
does that feel good?
am i right?
do you like me?
am i nice?
am i good?
you are right!
when my dog died, i kept
thinking, why isn’t anybody
else’s dog dying???
you know, in her place.
in admitting this, the swelling
in my back disperses.
to mitigate my trauma responses,
i grow my own radishes.
when i’m angry at my girlfriend,
who i don’t hate,
i give myself a paper cut
& call it a successful day.
then i touch water, cold metal.
i point out my flaws and give a grand
sorry, to which she says,
i wasn’t looking for an apology,
i was looking for radishes.
Movie Night
the first and only time
my dad and I watched
a movie together,
alone together, I was under
ten & he was woefully
under prepared.
he put on Definitely, Maybe
because it had just come out
& he’s white & he’s straight & he heard
it was a father/daughter feel-good
romp, & we never had feel-good romps,
just early political conflicts
over my interpretations of history
class & stitches he strung
through my skin, home surgeon,
whenever he was too encouraging
about team sports, gym class.
I’m sure he thought to himself,
this movie will be a good example.
my daughter will have a good
example about how to engage
in a feel-good romp with me.
anyways. the movie opens
with Abigail Breslin asking Ryan Reynolds
what sex is and in turn I turned
around to ask him what they were
talking about and he had his head
in his hands, but my father considered
himself a committed man, so we kept
watching. there was still the possibility
of a feel-good romp & confirmation
of the many benefits of being middle class,
the presidency of Bill Clinton,
heterosexual marriage. but,
my father and I, always consistent, if nothing
else, could argue over any given
piece of media
placed between us.
when Rachel Weisz kissed Elizabeth Banks
& they fell in love I was lost, staring
at the screen, asking my father
hundreds of questions, didn’t she love
the guy? does this happen? can
this happen? can this happen?
my dad, courageous explorer,
explained bisexuality to me that night,
in a series of frustrated shouts,
repeating “it doesn’t mean anything,
sometimes you just try
something, it isn’t something you can’t
come back from, I’m sure
she’ll come back from this!”
I was sitting there wondering (arguing)
how you could kiss someone Like That
& then want anything else, but in my dad’s
formulation there was a place to go
& a place to come back to & besides that,
an open, confusing void
in between & the only way I understood
distance was that I sat on the floor,
close to the television, & my father
sat on the couch, & I knew
it was to be away from me.
as a preteen I pronounce myself (quietly)
bisexual, introduce my father
(by way of walking past him)
to many historically close friends,
and many boyfriends I sit miserably beside
as he asks them questions, chats with them
on the couch. as an adult I tell a pine
tree in the woods by my house,
I’m a lesbian, never think to mention it
to him, that vast unknown place to go, &
come back from that he never speaks
against, but I know somewhere
in me is a deeper void, to him,
than the void-space I was already in,
the outer horizon I could still, potentially,
come all the way
back from, definitely. definitely, maybe.
Siobhan Hart (she/they) is a lesbian poet from Queens, New York. She is an MFA in Poetry candidate at Rutgers-Newark, where she teaches Creative Writing. Their poems can be found in Tupelo Quarterly and their critical work in American Poetry Review. She lives in Jersey City with her girlfriend and actually perfect dog, Junie.