\nAlton Sterling<\/em><\/p>\n
There\u2019s no logic to it, none
\nI can decipher.<\/p>\n
Some mornings
\nsilence, enough<\/p>\n
I can pay attention,
\npace around the internet<\/p>\n
& nothing, no part
\nof my body<\/p>\n
forces me to turn away.
\nOn others, there\u2019s a dial<\/p>\n
stuck inside, always
\nbetween stations<\/p>\n
bad news \/ smooth jazz
\n& I can\u2019t turn it down,<\/p>\n
the blinding static.<\/p>\n
On the internet,
\nthere are rooms<\/p>\n
full of people
\nlooking for a cure.<\/p>\n
There are specialists,
\na diagnosis: tinnitus<\/p>\n
from, of course, the Latin
\ntinnire, to ring<\/p>\n
as in: a telephone
\nbut there\u2019s no one home<\/p>\n
to answer, no one
\nbut me.<\/p>\n
I imagine the hands
\nof whoever\u2019s calling, godlike<\/p>\n
in their persistence
\nreaching out<\/p>\n
down into my red
\nwiring \u2014 I\u2019m sorry.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t mean to sound
\nungrateful. I am grateful<\/p>\n
as a weathervane
\nfinally struck.<\/p>\n
What strange
\nbenevolence:<\/p>\n
this morning, again
\nthe country ablaze<\/p>\n
firework \/ gunfire \/ man
\nof music & I<\/p>\n
alone in the manic dark, head
\nin my hands ringing<\/p>\n
& ringing, faithful
\ngoddamned blood alarm.<\/p>\n
\n
AUBADE<\/strong> <\/p>\n Virtually, every Sunday, we gather just the three of us: me, my sister, the upper-right quadrant of our mother\u2019s face. It\u2019s nearly impossible to take a disembodied forehead, seriously, at face-value which is why, when my sister reveals her girlfriend has left because of the space sorrow rends between them \/ the therapist \/ the [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[242],"class_list":["post-4610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-little-babji-an-encaustic-by-lori-field"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4610"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4649,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4610\/revisions\/4649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe cat wakes me up as always
\nrooting her head between my chest
\n& chin & failing this, licks the lacy crud
\nhardening in the corners of my mouth
\nwith her darling tongue, which she lets hang
\nbetween her lips as though ponderous
\nor posing for the camera, at least
\nwhen she\u2019s not using it to clean herself
\nfrom tail to toe to asshole & then my facehole,
\nwhich I know is a kind of favor\u2014
\nafter all, I\u2019m hairless & ugly & too dumb
\nto lift my limbs from the bed & polish each one.
\nIt\u2019s been so long, a whole season of drought
\n& what? You think I need to lift my head & pray
\nfor rain? You think I need to twirl
\nbeneath the firmament, the bruising sky?
\n& maybe you\u2019re right, or would be,
\nif I weren\u2019t half-boy, half-beast. If I didn\u2019t mark
\nthese walls myself, slink around the furniture.
\nI confess, the cat is right. I do need help
\nkeeping my face clean. Downy, these days,
\nas a newborn. There\u2019s a reason, you know,
\nwe\u2019re all writers or gone \/ missing
\nfrom the world like we never happened
\nto have a skin, only some unhappy wind
\npassing through. I\u2019ve lost you, haven\u2019t I?
\nBut what can I say? I\u2019m still right
\nhere, haven\u2019t moved all morning & who could
\nbe lonely when there\u2019s always this spectral self
\nto say hello to? Hello you. Darling you. Hello
\nsentry of my peace. Busy little tongue.<\/p>\n![\"nn,](\"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/nn-headshot-cam-awkward-rich-download-2.jpg\")
Cameron Awkward-Rich is the author of the chapbook Transit<\/em> (Button Poetry, 2015) and his debut collection, Sympathetic Little Monster<\/em>,was published by Ricochet Editions in 2016. He is a Cave Canem Fellow, a poetry editor at Muzzle Magazine, and currently a doctoral candidate in Modern Thought & Literature at Stanford University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"