Hieroglyphics in Flesh
I. Infection: Age 15
Birthed with the sting of a shader needle—
my wing bone burning, my blood
mixing with spirits.
In an acquaintance’s basement hazy
from marijuana & crushed Soma
blown off an antique vanity.
I had to jump from my second-story window,
sneak out before the birdsong.
This was before we knew consequence:
the playfulness of a baby’s first high.
We whiffed a few splinters, had to scrape
them from membrane. My childhood immortalized
in an effigy of imaginary friends: Ghost Head
Tree Head, Salt Head. Companions
who vanished in a sandbox.
II. Pyrexia: Age 17
Dissociation germinated in the fall
when her lashes swept through
raked mounds. Took notes on the shades
& hues. Gathered the shifting leaves,
stuffed them in my mouth, stuffed
them in the trash beneath my eyes,
colorblind; the taste of steel sticking
to my tongue. I smashed my teeth
on the piano keys, strung out of sight.
Relinquished footprints at my abuser’s door
as a relief. On edge—level with the night—
a drop can become so much more.
She gifted me this tattoo: silhouettes in free fall,
a red balloon. The chill of white
tile as I flushed away the leaves.
III. Elysium: Age 19
My rosary fell apart, & I carried the remains
to Lake Superior. Let the waves take them.
The sky was coughing up smoke. A memento:
I buried a rock of salt. After a mouthful
of amphetamines, I stayed awake a week
believing with absolute positivity I was
already dead—could hear the wolves
gambling, feasting on a herd of sheep.
When I ran away, the corners of my eyes
filled with gnats. I hid in a hollowed out
willow tree creaking—nobody called
my name. Tattered my sleeves, chewed
through nails & teeth, placed beneath
my tongue, in Holy Communion, strips
of LSD, pages from a Bible; I recognized
everyone who passed me by. My Grandpa Joe
swung through for a visit. I took a shot as he
loaded the needle gun: Let me show you
what you have forgotten. Left his thumbprint
on my forehead, tattooed an evil eye into
my sternum: black with a red pupil, ink
from his veins. I came down: Watercolor Cowboy,
his nom de plume, engraved across my clavicles.
IV. Ascension: Age 21
In mourning prayer, I spread my wingspan
across the horizon & stitch
the pinons my ancestors
left behind into my chest. Blood reigns
as I suture my pigmented wounds
through a thunderstorm, the plumage
blooming from my rib cage.
No longer do I fear the windfall, clench
with tension—just allow the breeze to blow
through me. Brush the dust from my lungs,
spill my mind, until everything
I was dissolves into a hum.
Justin Groppuso-Cook is a Writer-in-Residence at InsideOut Literary Arts Project and Poetry Reader for West Trade Review. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Best New Poets, Crab Creek Review, EcoTheo Review, and Luna Luna Magazine among others. He received the 2021 Haunted Waters Press Award for Poetry and has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His chapbook, Our Illuminated Pupils, was a semi-finalist for the Tomaž Šalamun Prize (Factory Hollow Press). In 2022, he was a resident at Writing Workshops Paris. More information can be found on his website, www.sunnimani.com.