THROUGH THE TEMPEST, A DOG YOU DO NOT KNOW COMES OFF ITS LEASH
What will you do after?
he asks. My Eater holds
his hands up always catching
a fish that grows
sardine to mackerel
to measure my time
between his teeth.
I ask how much is several in your language?
I know very well how to pack my ink
wrapped in soiled boxers tucked in Oxfords
so nothing gets written too hastily.
My Eater thinks of me
a muscle that twitches forth
and then
and then
No sense of East from here. Windmills ablate the horizon, flat fangs of rathering. Armin Miewes watches neighbors slaughter pigs, thinking what it would be to taste a friend and call it what it is.
He recites the roster, fumes of smoke. Between hands of clapboard, he makes a paper doll in his likeness to try and close the circuit. Clouds picking up speed.
In prison, Armin says he had a voice in his mind telling him to stop imagining the taste of boys on the playground.
A psychologist calls this voice his consciousness. Armin calls this voice his friend.
Chewing paper on his bed. Call it what it is.
Barely and not enough.
A year ago, I lived every day with Substrate the Man, and found new ways to transubstantiate.
I learned his rules.
He told me things about myself in the dark.
When you want something you look at it like a dog.
When I want something I look at it like a dog.
I tried to find a clear pool and could not.
Bit the skin around my nails to the bone.
Substrate shuddered, said sit on them until the bleeding stopped.
You know I can’t touch you after you’ve gone and done that.
At dinner, my plate was full. I was looking ahead.
Finish all of it.
I was looking ahead.
The hunger Substrate wished I had.
Weaned too early mouth always seeking
something to right me.
My Eater sets the table.
Adjusts
my frock
my pitch.
We bicker as he readies the oven.
Over dinner: where do you find yourself
in the food? Where do you find
yourself on the platter?
Don’t answer these questions
too quickly.
My boylung stops. His jeep spots
a lion in tender brush.
Eater tells me what’s allowed.
Reads the subject lines of my emails aloud
like torture
Most of what we do is make memoir of the orifices.
It starts together. Castration in the barn. Bernd Brandes ecstatic against palms of oil and poise. Smoke of the cut grilling swims up to rafters where larks roost. If Armin spears the meat on one fork? If they share it in a wash of sunset and comedown?
Here you are back into Bernd’s mouth.
Armin videotapes Bernd’s yes yes yes, who bares neck, lolls tongue, begs to be eaten all the way. Blood saccharin as a bird call.
Armin sets the table with velvet dressings, silver, and wax. The camera, wordless, sees him as he is. Blood jading his canines. Full for the first time.
Substrate the Man laid drill, knife, and fork on the table.
Told me he’d teach me how to use tools.
I took drill to my frisk notch. Next, my third hole.
I said I know what I like, where I want it.
He smacked it away, and Substrate said he would rehinge me himself.
Locked up the drill.
Later, I took the knife and fork to my thigh and I am hungry now.
After that, knives changed drawers.
I barked at the door.
I barked at the bathroom door where I knew a mirror to be.
When the year changed, I met my Eater.
Substrate I said I’m in love with an Eater!
Took me to his house, showed me his meat hooks.
I beelined for them. Said where can he put them and how deep.
He asked me where I began and did I need
to put my head under water for longer than advised.
Substrate broke a martini glass.
Said it’s like I don’t want help.
Said Go be a snack, something he can never fix.
My Eater makes a decisive
slice
stern
um
to
pelv
is
molds me at an angle
lets gravity do
the work.
My Eater sees a mineshaft
hears the little cart panting
in the dark
asks
did I make that?
Takes me to the river for a closer look.
Should we be so lucky that every hunger is fed?
There are three right ways to say Yes
and you must guess them.
In the courtroom, Armin shows the tapes of kissing between bites. Candle light flickers behind them. In the courtroom, Armin shows tapes of the wrong kind of yes.
My Eater takes me to the bank
and waits
for me to crane
my neck down.
and I grin and I don’t.
the leather tongue he made for me
dalmatian that I am I don’t.
And maybe he pushes
my head down.
and maybe
this is the kind
of love I asked for.
Bela Koschalk (they/them) is a writer based in Chicago, Illinois. Their poetry has been recognized by the Poetry Society of America. They have writing featured in Narrative Magazine, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Antiphony, The Columbia Journal, CutBank, and elsewhere. (Instagram: @belakoschalk)
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