why are my hands wet
Content Note: This audiopoem is a ritual meditating on the internal expression of trauma activation; please exercise care in listening and reading, particularly if you have experienced trauma, PTSD, sexual assault or self-harm.
the tears. where did the tears come from? the eyes.
the blood.
where did the blood come from? an opening. the ducts. what wrings the ducts?
grief.
the dishes.
what made the wound? the knife.
where is the grief now? pickled.
where is the knife now? clean, in the dish rack.
where is the wound? top of the thigh.
what made the chest tight? the heart.
what does the thigh want? to be touched.
what does the thigh want? to be touched.
what made the chest tight? grief.
what made the grief?
what does the thigh want? to never be touched.
how does relief come? pickled.
where is the knife now? the drawer.
what does the drawer want? an opening.
how does relief come? clean, in the dish rack.
what made the hands clench?
what made the grief?
where is the wound? hidden. where is the wound?
the eyes. where do the eyes go? my hands.
what does the thigh want? an opening.
what made the grief?
how does relief come? the knife.
how does the heart come?
the blood.
where is the knife now? my hands.
what does the heart want? an opening.
where do i go now? grief. where do i go now? an opening.
where do i go now? my hands. where do i go now? to be touched.
Ars poetica as / Self-portrait as / Late Heavy Bombardment1
consider the picaresque of one woman (told to another woman told to another woman told to another)
whose mind traps her in a room for hours
at a time—lost to reason / she’s back
at the cataclysm / fragile crust caving
under each concussion
as I / too / have been tumbling back—
down into that same old crater
with my sample jars / this incessant arm
of curiosity / scraping at hoary lunar soil
for buried memory / I’m hankering
to know how we’re propelled
/ can’t stop searching for some engine / a ballistics
thru the firmament / to twin these tiny motors
of my fears / which rumble at the limits of my senses
like starships on unseen screens—
where nothing grows / I’m tempted to believe
in stasis / not the wheeling gyration of bodies
I can still call / heaven / though I know it as
/ up / or / around / ––
a hollow myth––
last night / I dreamt again of
being entered in darkness / roving under
my bombarded skin / & there I froze
again / my dream screams soundless as space—
scrabbling out of sleep
I’m ravenous / fumbling for any theory
to sate my evidence / tonguing at mined shards
from a mind knocked loose as teeth—
I wonder how any of us consent to
say: keep loving / knowing the next impact could
come at any time / like this:
—suddenly young again / at the shore—
I tire / of playing catch / with a partner
but covet the ball itself / a small red
satellite / I can raise / aloft in one hand /
slam / over & over
against soft / white sand
where the wallowing tide slacks &
shaved clean of kicked phosphorescence
longs to become high
/ sky-slaked & violent with stars
1 Also known as the lunar cataclysm; a theoretical spike in asteroid collisions with planets and moons of the inner solar system hypothesized to have occurred roughly 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago. Experts remain divided as to whether there is enough evidence to conclusively prove a heightened incidence of damaging impacts.
KT Herr (they/she) is a queer poet, songwriter, and curious person with an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. KT has received creative support from G.L.E.A. and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Currently, they are a board member with Four Way Books and an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor PhD Fellow in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston. Their recent work appears or is forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Frontier, Barrow Street 4×2, and elsewhere.
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