C. Rees

These bodies becoming other bodies

I was born at the deer latitude where men take
on the skins of shower curtains and crouch under
 
holly trees to execute groundhogs as school buses
spill children like runoff. At the horse latitude,
 
stranded galleons drove bloodstock Andalusians
into the sea. Hooves, flanks, muzzles settled
 
abyssal sand, slipped shape, became years-
long suppers for congregations of isopods, bristle worms, sleeper sharks.
 
Abyssal nations birthed from jettisoned manifests:
men, women, children, horses, salt-packed dodo carcasses,
 
barrels of limes, history’s
cruel regard. So much to feed
 
us boys who congregated in finished basements,
dipped in manhood’s violent tricks, to watch horn porn
  
on DVD. Our prey-eyes luminous with night-vision videos,
the buck of the AR-15, the breathless impact, the buck’s
 
ragged tumble. Each of us harshening with animal
desire, empty countries filling.

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C. Rees (he/they) is a queer Pennsylvania-born eco-poet, writer, educator, and New Writers Project alumnus living in Austin, TX. His work has appeared in Frontier Poetry, Bat City Review, The Shore Poetry, Territory, the Action Books Blog, and elsewhere. You can follow them @17_yrbrood, and read their work at https://linktr.ee/c.rees.