Bath & Aria | JC Talamantez
—of false fruit, myth, and ingastration
after they were connected
to him in solemnity
and with the happenstance
of their hearts always
hungry for grist
—he asked his friends to run the water cold in the tub
and unwind the prologue of antichrist
while he slips unbidden / blindfolded
below the cooling skin
a slice of porcelain not quite
bone in a kiln
—that they touch for a brief
his loneliness / fill the belly
of bits that
he might know which part
of the body it is
so it was like preparing food / the exultation and wreckage
of the pretty boy in the bath
with the authenticity of his muted heart flashing
phonating over / the grievance
of frozen peas from a spoon
but for every prior day / spackle over it
and maybe for the linger of
a particular voice-color
i was a child stomping about
in gutter
after rain for it seemed
a great mystery was left in living
but also count the cost
to be seen just as i am
—we didn’t know yet, what was driftwood
or how the final note
would be
shaken
from the wire
—not for N.
Bonus audio of JC reading her poem:
About the author:
JC Talamantez’s work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, New Ohio Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Salamander, Smartish Pace, The Hopkins Review, Frontier Poetry, Boulevard, Water~Stone Review, Nimrod, Colorado Review, the Florida Review, and others. She teaches philosophy at Texas State University.