Miracle Whatsoever
I heard about your sister. And you know
what I mean by that. How you can only bear to hear
1 song & that you don’t have to want
to want to do anything. Maybe I learned the wrong lesson
when I took my sister’s arm & said No
one deserves to be loved like that. Or said
Don’t die, let’s just both stand up while highway lights
make decisions across the landforms of a
sequined dress & liquid eyeliner. It’s just us
but there’s nothing special about everything
all the time, & you know that.
*
Marquee romance as punishment & I panic every
time you spend your holidays. Paper horns & the biology
of emptiness. Did you also drink Guinness naked
in bed alone? It’s too late sweet pea. The needle is already
inside you. You’ll know sorrow when you trust
only 1-syllable words. Until then it’s still pretty. You find
the language that needs you. And maybe no language
ever needed you bad enough.
*
No one ever once thought
I would have a son. I barely have
brothers. But I’m a wall between biology
& my sisters. May they feel their mother more
faintly.
*
Your hand gathering my hair like handfuls
of shelled black beans.
It goes
together because I say it goes together. You don’t get to
pick anything about this language, which
needed me & found me itself. This quality is silence
until I say there isn’t any. I paid the bartender extra
to serve shots of water. When he said
You’re an idiot I said Just say it’s fucking
Patron.
*
Don’t let me teach you anything I know
about bodies. If you’re this close I already
handed you some horrible needle. Things keep
being new & whatsoever. I kicked you w/ my pretty
face & every kick a different death. And I love
1 thing.
You can fear the body if you want. Pleasure
stupid. Breath is automatic. But you will lose
when you bet against your lungs.
Out is impulse. In is in, it just is. The word
mom no miracle. Don’t you know we name ourselves
after what the body already
knows to do?
by Emily Vizzo
what I mean by that. How you can only bear to hear
1 song & that you don’t have to want
to want to do anything. Maybe I learned the wrong lesson
when I took my sister’s arm & said No
one deserves to be loved like that. Or said
Don’t die, let’s just both stand up while highway lights
make decisions across the landforms of a
sequined dress & liquid eyeliner. It’s just us
but there’s nothing special about everything
all the time, & you know that.
*
Marquee romance as punishment & I panic every
time you spend your holidays. Paper horns & the biology
of emptiness. Did you also drink Guinness naked
in bed alone? It’s too late sweet pea. The needle is already
inside you. You’ll know sorrow when you trust
only 1-syllable words. Until then it’s still pretty. You find
the language that needs you. And maybe no language
ever needed you bad enough.
*
No one ever once thought
I would have a son. I barely have
brothers. But I’m a wall between biology
& my sisters. May they feel their mother more
faintly.
*
Your hand gathering my hair like handfuls
of shelled black beans.
It goes
together because I say it goes together. You don’t get to
pick anything about this language, which
needed me & found me itself. This quality is silence
until I say there isn’t any. I paid the bartender extra
to serve shots of water. When he said
You’re an idiot I said Just say it’s fucking
Patron.
*
Don’t let me teach you anything I know
about bodies. If you’re this close I already
handed you some horrible needle. Things keep
being new & whatsoever. I kicked you w/ my pretty
face & every kick a different death. And I love
1 thing.
You can fear the body if you want. Pleasure
stupid. Breath is automatic. But you will lose
when you bet against your lungs.
Out is impulse. In is in, it just is. The word
mom no miracle. Don’t you know we name ourselves
after what the body already
knows to do?
by Emily Vizzo
Emily Vizzo is a San Diego poet, journalist, and educator whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in FIELD, Blackbird, jubilat, The Journal, North American Review, and The Normal School. Her essay, “A Personal History of Dirt,” was listed as a notable essay for Best American Essays 2013. A San Diego Area Writing Project fellow, Emily Vizzo serves as assistant managing editor at Drunken Boat, volunteers with VIDA, Poetry International and Hunger Mountain, and teaches yoga at the University of San Diego.