Rachel Mennies
Body According to Its Kind
Body where
the wants lie
in their want-
sized plots. Body
where the rotten
wants still grab
what they will
from the earth.
Grabbing his belt,
the body
always says
open.
Body that bites
the harvest
to its core,
but doesn’t
spit the seeds.
Body of task:
grow the berry,
swallow
the butter. Body
sweetening, heavy
on the cord.
Open body
of instinct, his belt
still new, uncreased.
The body it came
from could grow
to any size
at all.
When the ripening
fails, shake
the body. Tip
it sideways
and see what
plummets out.
Body of
caesura. Body
of animal shit,
of stake.
Body growing
in its own fat,
shame-tippled,
soft. Body
of October fruit,
hollowed
by rot. Body
still red
and round,
if he doesn’t
know better.
Body he wants
to rub
to a mirror’s
shine, see
his reflection
on its gleaming
dead heel.
Rachel Mennies is the author of The Glad Hand of God Points Backwards, winner of the 2013 Walt McDonald First-Book Prize in Poetry (Texas Tech University Press, 2014) and the chapbook No Silence in the Fields (Blue Hour Press, 2012). Recent poems of hers are forthcoming or have appeared in The Journal, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Handsome, Poet Lore, and elsewhere, and have been reprinted at Poetry Daily. She currently teaches in the First-Year Writing Program at Carnegie Mellon University and is a member of AGNI's editorial staff.
Return to November 2014 Edition
Body where
the wants lie
in their want-
sized plots. Body
where the rotten
wants still grab
what they will
from the earth.
Grabbing his belt,
the body
always says
open.
Body that bites
the harvest
to its core,
but doesn’t
spit the seeds.
Body of task:
grow the berry,
swallow
the butter. Body
sweetening, heavy
on the cord.
Open body
of instinct, his belt
still new, uncreased.
The body it came
from could grow
to any size
at all.
When the ripening
fails, shake
the body. Tip
it sideways
and see what
plummets out.
Body of
caesura. Body
of animal shit,
of stake.
Body growing
in its own fat,
shame-tippled,
soft. Body
of October fruit,
hollowed
by rot. Body
still red
and round,
if he doesn’t
know better.
Body he wants
to rub
to a mirror’s
shine, see
his reflection
on its gleaming
dead heel.
Rachel Mennies is the author of The Glad Hand of God Points Backwards, winner of the 2013 Walt McDonald First-Book Prize in Poetry (Texas Tech University Press, 2014) and the chapbook No Silence in the Fields (Blue Hour Press, 2012). Recent poems of hers are forthcoming or have appeared in The Journal, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Handsome, Poet Lore, and elsewhere, and have been reprinted at Poetry Daily. She currently teaches in the First-Year Writing Program at Carnegie Mellon University and is a member of AGNI's editorial staff.
Return to November 2014 Edition