ISSUE 7

Ryan Clark

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A Violent Sound (sic)¹

This is a violent sound, this cut-off word
a minister voice roar of hell or life or whatever
reverberates against the elephant roof the dome
the veil we’d lost to heaven. The one two three
of force bled into law the way we’ve learned
to count on. I hover with my violence.
I soar on its violent wing, engage in conduct
that aids or abets the performance
of abhorrent behavior, and it is my own
voluntary self and not some mad rifle-laden other
rotting the day into night-filled alleyways
shivering from a vote of sudden loss.
Then to house and to clothe my violence
as it is my offspring and not I its child—
I ruffle its hair each and every morning,
I refuse it nothing, I pretend not to fear how it
follows me everywhere. Rome dies in a day
and I applaud the ruin, I frequent collapse.
I suck ignorant mistakes through a quiver of straws
and your rights just vanish. Squint to see
if the court is favorable yet we know it is busted,
we know the venom of originalism has finally
reached the heart, it is a fatal type of beating
you suffer to hear now, reasonably believable life.
As if the performance of cardiac activity
reveals the presence of a heart or of humanity,
I construe the jump of the line to mean
a rope by which to hang dainty on the wall
a Texas only I can touch. My fingers brush
against the border, enscripted frame (sic).

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¹ Homophonic translation of an excerpt from Texas Senate Bill 8, a piece of anti-abortion legislation commonly known as the Texas Heartbeat Act.

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Doll Parts²

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Under the roof of Crockett Elementary
a volleyball coach teaches us about abortion:
how a fetus is alive as it’s dismembered, its body
parts doll-like and vacuumed. This was
the one approved context for the word suck.
The smell reeks of burnt marker from
the overhead projector’s illustration
as I remember the protective decapitation
of a My Buddy I thought might murder me
in the dark of my room as I slept, still afraid
of Child’s Play. Later, at Old High³, we tear
the wet flesh of vacuum-sealed fetus pigs.
Youthful scalpels sever connective tissue
and we remove with gloved fingers
our assigned organs, lay each soft shape
on a folded offering of brown paper.
Residue feels its way through to the table’s
surface anyway, and of course we cannot
leave marks, so we roughly scrape it off,
though we smell for days of formaldehyde,
as if some ghost must always linger.

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² Homophonic translation of an excerpt from Texas Senate Bill 8, a piece of anti-abortion legislation commonly known as the Texas Heartbeat Act.

³ Colloquial term for Wichita Falls High School in Wichita Falls, Texas.

 

 

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