A is for
by Gretchen Rockwell
A is for ​
Acacia trees are full of ants: small stinging bodies
that curl in their long thorns to deter smaller threats,
a symbiosis of mutual interest that lets the trees grow
without interruption, without a thousand tiny bites
eating away at the strong trunk. I'm so sorry, she said
like she was talking about a blown-off limb, or a fast-
moving cancer. I laughed. (What is there to do
but laugh.) Can't miss what you never had. Her eyes
stayed bruised. Absence is not the worst fate. Singleness,
someone once said, is an empty house, an empty life, an empty
bed. I like my solitude, my own space, the starfishing
across the wide bed without worry of running into icy toes or
interrupting the quiet hitched-breaths of another being.
Acacia trees sink their roots deep into the dry soil and store up
reservoirs of water for the days of long sun where no respite
comes. I smile into my coffee and don't correct my well-
intentioned friend when she says I mean, some of the happiest
times of my life have been when I was single—but eventually
you'll find someone, don't worry! I only say I don't. I lack
the patience to constantly explain. The opposite of shame
is pride, but this isn't about either. It's about silence,
how an avoidance of speech is sometimes the best
defense. The acacia trees spread across the savannah
in groves are tied together not by a subterranea of roots
but by a system of shared secrets. When giraffes first begin
to tear at the high leaves, the tree spits back alkaloids, and
in a waving banner signaling the first assault, a single
chemical flare goes up and suddenly all the surrounding
acacia start to produce their own poison in an invisible network
of support, standing in solidarity; alert, aware, saying I see you.
Disembodiment
by Gretchen Rockwell
Disembodiment​
I hate having a body. It's a cage
and I wish I could shed it like a snake.
I want to peel my face off, watch it break
to splinters as if some bacteriophage
had split its seams. I am consumed by rage;
it has to be some grand cosmic mistake
I wasn't born on some planet where lakes
of gleaming crystal mean that each bright sage
burns bodiless and windlike in the light.
Or if not that, then make me some reptile
repulsive to the eye—brain in a vat—
make me some creature seething with a spite
so sharp my blood itself is thick with bile—
make me some burnt-out star. Let me be that.
Self-Portrait as Space Odyssey
by Gretchen Rockwell
Self-Portrait as Space Odyssey​
after the revelation [] I say []
body [] now define yourself []
chorus of stars [] & satellites
[] daisies & thorns [] the body
emptied [] of meaning [] & full
for confrontation [] body, I say []
grant yourself an ability to be
hull, husk, haven [] I'm afraid []
it says to me[] I can't do that []
Jupiter can [] never be [] a star
[] king [] though it is [] no body
learns itself [] first [] I am not [] a
[] monolith——of course [] I am
not an object [] nor an AI [] I am
only [] a person [] & I am lonely
[] pretending to be [] a skeleton []
[] quarks [] of nature prevent [] me
returning to the place I've left
space warping around my form
till I pass beyond some horizon
unseen I will return please don't
vivisect whatever remains of me
(why not call yourself
extraterrestrial? after all
you've reached your
zenith—)
Gretchen Rockwell
Gretchen Rockwell is a queer poet and supplemental instructor of English at the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Newport, RI. Xer work has appeared in Glass: Poets Resist, Into the Void, Noble/Gas Qtrly, and the minnesota review, as well as in other publications. Xe enjoys writing poetry about gender and sexuality, history, space, and unusual connections. Find xer on Twitter at @daft_rockwell or at xer website, www.gretchenrockwell.com.