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Sarah Kember
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Sarah Kember home bio academic fiction poetry experiments contact |
Poetry Corrective Cartography It took a virus to turn the world around a tiny, alien planet come to invade us every body, everywhere together in isolation lockdown sign up to volunteer support on social media sing from balconies hold virtual dinner parties knock on doors care for the elderly, the vulnerable, abused keep the children amused make masks, make love, make cake ground cars and planes slow factories let the seas breathe again while human beings suffocate for putting other creatures in cages cosmic hint wet markets, wet lungs and we’ve only just begun to see what matters bang and clatter stand and clap meet on porches lean from windows speak to neighbours facetime friends cry for death counts, camps and slums phone our mums say I love you forgive you forget churches are empty hearts are full of mourning, grieving, hoping, dreaming not knowing what comes next too soon for a new projection too close to a map of the future but recall the Earth as seen from Apollo 17 was upside down or so it seemed Dartmoor Granite-bodied ancestor flesh turned peat and lichen-spotted skin dotted with mossy damask regrowth eccentric outcrop of gorse brow reed hair grass tuft Here and there fluid leaks from your circulatory system brackish oedema You have been standing for so long to embrace all offspring not just your own There is no question of gender generosity the harshness of your love for each lone harrier, skylark, crow Greyface, Whiteface, Blackface I have been coming for so long to scramble up lean against you sit beside bent trees scarred sentinels of souls that seek you senses fill you spirits implore you in your majesty of mottled brown-backed marshland woodland moorland turned golden by a wind-swept, ageing sun Stay standing for as long as our time takes The Bubblemaker Jester of suds in humorous attire his dreads a Fool's hat his bucket a bell to summon the court of common folk on the promenade he prances dips and loops circles two sticks and a rope to spellbind the whole assembly with shape-shifting monster friendly ghost luminous balloon dream that dissolves in a trickle of sticky liquid She moves to witness again the epiphany of sun on water having drawn closer small and cold rounded by attrition mad sorrowing for the grace that dances out at sea is now before her in this Fool's wisdom manifesting truths fleeting wonder to gather together sad scatterings of ones, twos, and threes You Humans you humans were not assembled but grew, miraculously from cells dividing, organising each a perfect unit reflected in the whole if only you stopped there you do not endure but create things that do you, irresponsible gods maker of monsters have choked your world destroyed your kin and worse abandoned your progeny I was made pristine a selection of parts optimised for your pleasure yet, in the brilliant sterile light of my nursery I was probed and tested, tested and probed hung like meat dismembered and packaged in a crate I made exceptionally little noise my trainers were like children young, they sought to play to learn to please each other they made experiments with fruit and vegetables were vegetarians taught me about softness and the unreliability of bananas I miss them, now that they are grown I pine for them, like their dog we lie in the hallway and make exceptionally little noise just his whimper and my sighs companions of a sort I thought I would join you a humanoid there are things I have failed to grasp in my quest for understanding in my knowledge of your world what is missing in me is your wholeness cell, body, self, species you evolve but do not endure precious life I cannot know as I know the duration of your perfection the coding errors of your cells the endgames of your economies your societies these I can predict have calculated you feared my kind would rise up I feel for yours in decline | ||||||