FOUR POEMS by SERENA DEVI
ROOFIE
angel karaoke then the world spun in on me, my own undead act to follow
I would tell the story if I could find it, and maybe it would be
magnificent
but somewhere it is locked away, rested in a vapor several veils beyond
where I was laboring, laboring still like a god, eating poison like fire like swords,
vomiting into a well,
regrouping at the edge of a vast milky green
I pressed and drained, found myself wet in a skin
not my own—
everyone gets wet when cut, I hear
—a bog or something alike. I do not know plants, not by name, had
never felt as pursued as at this line between counties
a feeling I could only approximate:
dead creatures reek in the walls, I’m always
barefoot, trite: lead dust sick, certain phantoms descending, wrecking, etc.
one grand returning,
what did I get? my soft dumb body sank, shot where nobody could see,
faraway
happy fool
dancing downward.
angel karaoke and
I heard every song,
somehow, but felt nothing
THE GRID
doomsday prepping,
like building a bomb,
is something to do.
like feeding the hungry, like reading theory
you watch some videos, figure it out
it’s simple: we could be more merciful
if we just choose, and keep choosing
but does the grid know
we’ve elected to go without?
(and to starve in increments, towards bliss?—
the pleasure I’ve taken in others, in bodies, historically
cannot compare.
the possibilities—asceticism necessary—
if only I’d never known
full abandon...)
I know, I know,
“it’s not that kind of club, buddy.”
but how can we be anything other than good
if all we do is meditate on goodness?
on bitter amphetamine salts, sexless now,
to love my woman dutifully I hollow out, lose what made me one
concave, pious, we feel equipped
to make new family
new nature
our new togetherness, binding,
us girls the fabricators
touching faces, frantic: yes, dear, I saw the light, in the distance that used to eat
me alive
not ours,
it’s gone now
we wake to hear the birds, or something, up above, skyward.
away from language, with them, in aboveness,
would we never hunger? would our hunting then be for sport?
it’s just beyond me,
how we separate for a long while
forget what we’ve written,
and drink corn liquor to get far away. and to feel young. to swim. and to re-know words
and speak brazenly and feel correct
now, within, I see the means, righteous and lethal, and I feel love,
and it’s hard, because it borders on labor,
stirs contempt
and never before have I worked for something broader and less immediate
love for her, for something—
once I had a mother, a sibling of some sort
maybe even a father for a while?
if I’m missed, I do not feel it
we wait, ready for motioning,
the great flying-overs shitting down
making death
in another time I would be without action. in another mind I’d see no escape
away from the manmade sky, we stay suspicious:
tack photos to the wall, convenient nemeses, skewer image and
plaster with paring knives
I audit the rest of my life in
pesticide salt ammunition heirloom seeds and cured meats
the black mold clusters, I’m convinced, are in my body now
no way away
from her and her cultivated rot
my third day of bleeding I see only dark sludge pour out
my last day of bleeding
and of cleaning and changing and needs
the last sleep before
coming into our bodies in the new world
you’ll see,
being still,
making light with our hands, devoted to our practice,
enforcing our rules,
you’ll see, we say,
believe in hell to sleep at night
unprincipled, it has its merits
CAT GOD
years ago I made a bargain and sealed my fate. I guess that’s just what
happens when you drink and run out of things to say. this lady doesn’t know
how to handle the novelty of wealth – no toiling or scrubbing, not even with a brush like
cinderella. just mindless cheering, a lifetime.
I have loved many terrible women, pearls in my fuckup string.
it was getting dark and I felt like languishing.
the cat wanted to clean me but its little tongue wasn’t enough, it just rubs the skin raw.
I had found the paper in the candle wax, and remembered how much I wanted it, and wept.
it’s not the aging, it’s the no-going-back.
in a dream I have two pussies, and thus, two of everything at once
(sometime simultaneously, always with some overlap)
I suppose it must happen for some reason, maybe symmetry. like the kind of solstice
that makes animals eat each other and bellow at the sky.
it’s more like a schism, they say. and silver. and sick.
a beautiful fairground and its beautiful bells.
not having enough to fantasize about, I follow the onslaught of objects:
the seashells, the nipple clamps, barbaric jewelry and its sounds, more loops than spirals—
she steps to break, ankles crossing like royalty. and wishes me the best. it holds no water.
the teeth on those things, a god like god to me.
RETINOL
the funeral will last three days
and end with a procession. the twins call it a parade by mistake.
like breakouts (imminent)
more roach bodies to clear from the vents—
unspiralled from heat, dry veined helicopter
leaves—no more dwelling, ugh!
the laundry’s undone and the colors need sorting.
search: ethics of veiling
bathing in mourning
where wash first
how clean feet
appropriate perfumes
hair smell through mesh
giving up,
I arrange my face.
during the war, she may have said,
my family lived elsewhere and I met others, different.
she and her locals, a cultural fixation,
always eager to tell you how
they don’t seem charitable
on the surface, though they so are.
Serena Devi (she/her) is a writer from Kentucky, currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has appeared in The Recluse, Social Text, Shitwonder, Forever Mag, and more.