Mag Gabbert
Steam
tracing the obvious
curves of your shoulder blades
like wings
as you sleep beside me
I remember a friend
who recently witnessed
a man’s heart transplant surgery
she said the room smelled
so clean
then after his chest
was sawed open
after the single note
strung by blade against bone
a burnt fragrance rose up
like an offering
in the language of steam
everything is a metaphor
exhaust pressure
valve piston chamber
the way you turn
your feverish body
from one side to the other
last week I read
about a Chinese scientist
with the surname “He”
who had altered a set
of babies’ genes
I kept thinking He
was a deified pronoun
as in He who created
you out of ashes
and since steam
is invisible
I’ve been thinking
about effervescence
because we call “steam”
the mist of droplets
formed as it condenses
so we only see it
when it’s disappearing
I’ve been thinking
that transcendence must
require water and heat
last night there was
a room made of glass
at the base of a mountain
and I stood inside it
naked
wiping cloud from my cheeks
Mag Gabbert holds a PhD in creative writing from Texas Tech University and an MFA from The University of California at Riverside. Her essays and poems have been published in 32 Poems, Stirring, The Rumpus, The Boiler Journal, Anomaly, Phoebe, Birmingham Poetry Review, and many other journals. Mag teaches creative writing for the Graduate Department of Liberal Studies at Southern Methodist University and for Writing Workshops Dallas; she serves as an associate editor for Iron Horse Literary Review and for Underblong Journal. For more information, please visit maggabbert.com.
Return to May 2019 Edition
tracing the obvious
curves of your shoulder blades
like wings
as you sleep beside me
I remember a friend
who recently witnessed
a man’s heart transplant surgery
she said the room smelled
so clean
then after his chest
was sawed open
after the single note
strung by blade against bone
a burnt fragrance rose up
like an offering
in the language of steam
everything is a metaphor
exhaust pressure
valve piston chamber
the way you turn
your feverish body
from one side to the other
last week I read
about a Chinese scientist
with the surname “He”
who had altered a set
of babies’ genes
I kept thinking He
was a deified pronoun
as in He who created
you out of ashes
and since steam
is invisible
I’ve been thinking
about effervescence
because we call “steam”
the mist of droplets
formed as it condenses
so we only see it
when it’s disappearing
I’ve been thinking
that transcendence must
require water and heat
last night there was
a room made of glass
at the base of a mountain
and I stood inside it
naked
wiping cloud from my cheeks
Mag Gabbert holds a PhD in creative writing from Texas Tech University and an MFA from The University of California at Riverside. Her essays and poems have been published in 32 Poems, Stirring, The Rumpus, The Boiler Journal, Anomaly, Phoebe, Birmingham Poetry Review, and many other journals. Mag teaches creative writing for the Graduate Department of Liberal Studies at Southern Methodist University and for Writing Workshops Dallas; she serves as an associate editor for Iron Horse Literary Review and for Underblong Journal. For more information, please visit maggabbert.com.
Return to May 2019 Edition