Audrey Gradzewicz
Jon, Master of Sexual Positions
O Tisiphone, the morning I, too, was clad in a blood-wet dress,
I let the man who raped me absolve himself in a cornfield
in Illinois. I have never kept a serpent for a pet, let it learn
a taste for sulfur. Though sometimes, I dream myself into Eden,
shriek Leave Eve alone! in the language of Chris Crocker’s
smudged mascara. Which is to say, I again offer up my own body.
When I was young, I watched a woman on Jerry Springer
who purposefully cut off her own legs with a chainsaw
explain that had never felt more whole. The audience
laughed nervously, but I understood, longed to shed
my smooth skin for something rougher. Tisiphone, the bloated,
big-headed years I spent walking along Occom Pond
when what I yearned for was the bite of the new and improved
five-bladed Occam’s razor. Would what burns in you
understand if I confided that I want to set myself on fire?
This is no metaphor. When I was seventeen, I sat for hours
by a creek bed next to an open can of gasoline. I tried
to find its scent comforting, imagine my new, featureless life,
a body raw enough to be reborn into. What I want is to be a bear
in a medieval bestiary that has to be licked into shape,
to be a girl awaiting the gift of Tongues. Tisiphone, I want.
In Pennsylvania, a woman I fucked surprised me
with a strap-on, and I threatened to beat her with it
until she was dead. This is like and unlike me. Tisiphone,
do you always know the form of the thing you are avenging?
Tisiphone, sear me. Tisiphone, watch over my friends:
Juliana begat of Chicago; Brittany begat of Chicago; Bola
who lived in Chicago; Maryam who dreams of Chicago;
Audrey of Oregon; Lauren of Connecticut; Lauren
of North Carolina adjacent to ash. And Jon of lemon
water, of mango water. Of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow
and Immaculate Housekeeping. Master of Sexual Positions.
Tisiphone, it is only the earth he is trying to bend himself into.
Audrey Gradzewicz was born in Buffalo, New York. Her poems have been published in Southern Indiana Review, Smartish Pace, Mid-American Review, Muzzle, The Puritan, Ninth Letter, and Passages North.
Return to November 2020 Edition
O Tisiphone, the morning I, too, was clad in a blood-wet dress,
I let the man who raped me absolve himself in a cornfield
in Illinois. I have never kept a serpent for a pet, let it learn
a taste for sulfur. Though sometimes, I dream myself into Eden,
shriek Leave Eve alone! in the language of Chris Crocker’s
smudged mascara. Which is to say, I again offer up my own body.
When I was young, I watched a woman on Jerry Springer
who purposefully cut off her own legs with a chainsaw
explain that had never felt more whole. The audience
laughed nervously, but I understood, longed to shed
my smooth skin for something rougher. Tisiphone, the bloated,
big-headed years I spent walking along Occom Pond
when what I yearned for was the bite of the new and improved
five-bladed Occam’s razor. Would what burns in you
understand if I confided that I want to set myself on fire?
This is no metaphor. When I was seventeen, I sat for hours
by a creek bed next to an open can of gasoline. I tried
to find its scent comforting, imagine my new, featureless life,
a body raw enough to be reborn into. What I want is to be a bear
in a medieval bestiary that has to be licked into shape,
to be a girl awaiting the gift of Tongues. Tisiphone, I want.
In Pennsylvania, a woman I fucked surprised me
with a strap-on, and I threatened to beat her with it
until she was dead. This is like and unlike me. Tisiphone,
do you always know the form of the thing you are avenging?
Tisiphone, sear me. Tisiphone, watch over my friends:
Juliana begat of Chicago; Brittany begat of Chicago; Bola
who lived in Chicago; Maryam who dreams of Chicago;
Audrey of Oregon; Lauren of Connecticut; Lauren
of North Carolina adjacent to ash. And Jon of lemon
water, of mango water. Of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow
and Immaculate Housekeeping. Master of Sexual Positions.
Tisiphone, it is only the earth he is trying to bend himself into.
Audrey Gradzewicz was born in Buffalo, New York. Her poems have been published in Southern Indiana Review, Smartish Pace, Mid-American Review, Muzzle, The Puritan, Ninth Letter, and Passages North.
Return to November 2020 Edition