ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Chloe Hanson is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Tennessee, where she studied under Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. Her work has recently been featured in The Rumpus, Gargoyle, SWWIM, and Apeiron Review. She is the current poetry editor for Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts.
Daughter Of The Air Regrets Bartering Away Her Voice For Nice Set Of Gams
Names he gives me in a name’s absence: bright one. pet. a fine cut. fresh.
What I wear, what wears me: skin so like scales. polyps. His kiss: a hook through the lip.
Caught in his sheets like bykill, new legs twisted up, I choke on air like a fish. At night
I am laid out neat at his feet. The novelty of a beautiful voiceless thing. creature. woman. animal.
kingdom. phylum. clade. I remind myself I did not choose this net to swim in.
Gills flutter like winged creatures then grow still. He promises to take me fishing. bait. bobber.
What my body dredges up from the depths: women who bite harder at the sight of
me shimmering beneath him. A diamond ring chokes a finger, pink salmon caught
in a plastic divider. brood stock. catch&release.
Last kiss before the hatchery. The taste of blood. salt. mine. his.
Foam washes everything away with the tides.
The whole world remade in red.
This poem is a re-imagining of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Little Mermaid,” specifically focusing on the violent aspects of the original tale. The poem is also concerned with the ways in which we use language to remove the physical body or suffering of an individual (what Carol J. Adams calls “absent referents”).
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
