Samantha Duncan: It's Not a Trick
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
Made Me A Meal
a body new in neutral song I beat oblivious
to its hold footholds in a neighbor’s front yard tree
tuck of sun happiest known then
time’s bloom and wilt bud of want
with wish I let go surface later blood
and snow hired me my palms changed womb
in drive against churn I’m endless
live and rage instead of the other way what is
the other way to weather a song in every key every
shift please let me will I shift again any swing
against skin loosening or stay become root body
body adjacent best forward balance planted
I want to live before the identify in me a meal
broth me in the kitchen eat under tree reverse
my bones cloaked in earth my children play
it’s not a trick
virgin mother fighter all at once / auto these bones / matic an even
number of little fucking socks / at my best i fuel but not this cycle /
how to write a birth with just one of me as the star / trash pickup
all over / i have an echo for breakfast / prep for bad guys plastic &
flesh / sever my think step on a lego / stripping feels nuked /
bedchamber / political organ & spilled milk interrupt finding an
exact spiral second during which i could be ditched & lifeless /
story time / just a minute without it all / idling idle idealized /
afternoon tv / fighter mother keep at it / my body as opinion for
men’s violence looks extra slim & purple today / why
thank you
When I’m naked
I don’t wake early every day,
and they hold their breath, how
they hold, please hold, have and hold,
but not for faith or memento. How
dare I, is a real-think. Hold that
thought. How a dream is a violence
that teaches us every moment lies
in what we eat our money for,
but I only breathe in the moments
I don’t. Still, the doing, the need. Still,
the urgency, the telling not through
a prism. Often, you have to shake them
like silly percussion until they believe.
Often, you bleed and stain a street.
When I’m naked, I have to believe
gasoline stops flowing through veins
of pumps everywhere, traffic lights
short out, an elevator in a tower
holds its CEO hostage, while I eat,
naked. I have to believe body
cameras stay on and I’ll share a meal
with you again. How a suburb violences,
its laughter a tremor. Please hold
anger and each other, watch me
refuse to ensemble my body
in tunics and lavender. See the fear
bloom and fall tragic beside the buds.
Samantha Duncan is the author of four poetry chapbooks, including Playing One on TV (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2018) and The Birth Creatures (Agape Editions, 2016), and her work has recently appeared in BOAAT, decomP, Glass Poetry, Meridian, and The Pinch. She is a prose editor for Storyscape Journal, reads for The Atlas Review, and she lives in Houston.
