When you have no more paper
write with sound
on the windows of a body,
fill street with body,
break street with body.
We plead with our bodies
to know how far breaking can go,
how far street can fall,
and what sound it makes
on the subway cart’s skull,
gravel on metal
on rail.
There is nothing left,
but maintaining.
There is no more quiet in us.
We used our quiet on nights
eating each other’s names out of fear,
hunger to know the depth
of another person.
Now even, now,
I remember
there are always bodies under me,
the rattle of metal,
the travel of soul
under earth.
Layers of apartments,
tucked one beneath the next
like bodies,
sweating
with June humidity.
I want a Village for us
with all kind of windows.
I need to break them,
inside, a sort of quiet,
the kind of quiet we had
when there was only mouth,
no gender,
just teeth
and subway,
running like a sob
underneath skin.
ROBIN GOW’s poetry has recently been published in POETRY, New Delta Review, and VASTARIEN. He is a graduate student and professor at Adelphi University pursing an MFA in Creative Writing. He is the Editor at Large for Village of Crickets, Managing Editor for The Nasiona and Social Media Coordinator for Oyster River Pages. He is an out and proud bisexual transgender man passionate about LGBT issues. He loves poetry that lilts in and out of reality and his queerness is also the central axis of his work.
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