Talking Incest in the School Nurse's Office
Abe Louise Young
I feel a larval beetle burrow in my muscles.
The sapling wants to break a switch.
There’s a root, a tuber, a test tube yam stuck between my ribs.
Can you see the stone humming in my radar?
Everything is starting to twitch.
I didn’t have any homework.
I have to pick the lock.
Can you come for dinner, breakfast, Mardi Gras?
My cat loosens the fist of my third eye.
My dad hates sauerkraut and oranges.
I’d like to use your knee hammer and tweezers.
Do I have good reflexes?
Dilate an exit point and ease the foreign objects out.
Or the tongue, it’s soft and pragmatic.
I won’t resist.
Alarm clock, fire siren, memory, falling tree, landmine.
Dead skin, joyriding eyelash.
The basement, the attic, the tool shed, the half-bath.
Zucchini, cucumber, okra, that big black beard.
Have you seen my rash?
I don’t have a note to excuse me.
Let’s rough my knees up, slough my lies out.
No escapees.
If I have to, I’ll shout.
Conjure a leaf or a trumpet,
caramels covered in sea salt.
No one can steal me.
Can I have a Saltine and some water?
A wet washcloth on my collarbone?
Count to twelve before you sing.
I’m bad at math but good in participation.
Someone says I’m a prostitute.
Earth is a hammock of spiderweb and bluebird eggs.
I have cat breath and babydoll limbs.
My homework is in that bag.
Please use a pair of plastic scissors,
and cut my hair tangles from the sky.
I feel a larval beetle burrow in my muscles.
The sapling wants to break a switch.
There’s a root, a tuber, a test tube yam stuck between my ribs.
Can you see the stone humming in my radar?
Everything is starting to twitch.
I didn’t have any homework.
I have to pick the lock.
Can you come for dinner, breakfast, Mardi Gras?
My cat loosens the fist of my third eye.
My dad hates sauerkraut and oranges.
I’d like to use your knee hammer and tweezers.
Do I have good reflexes?
Dilate an exit point and ease the foreign objects out.
Or the tongue, it’s soft and pragmatic.
I won’t resist.
Alarm clock, fire siren, memory, falling tree, landmine.
Dead skin, joyriding eyelash.
The basement, the attic, the tool shed, the half-bath.
Zucchini, cucumber, okra, that big black beard.
Have you seen my rash?
I don’t have a note to excuse me.
Let’s rough my knees up, slough my lies out.
No escapees.
If I have to, I’ll shout.
Conjure a leaf or a trumpet,
caramels covered in sea salt.
No one can steal me.
Can I have a Saltine and some water?
A wet washcloth on my collarbone?
Count to twelve before you sing.
I’m bad at math but good in participation.
Someone says I’m a prostitute.
Earth is a hammock of spiderweb and bluebird eggs.
I have cat breath and babydoll limbs.
My homework is in that bag.
Please use a pair of plastic scissors,
and cut my hair tangles from the sky.
About the artist
Abe Louise Young is an award-winning poet and educator whose work explores creative contact and liberation. She lives in Austin, Texas, and was educated at Smith College, Northwestern University, and the University of Texas, where she was a James A. Michener Fellow in Writing. Her poetry/essays have recently appeared in The Nation, The Christian Science Monitor, and the Massachusetts Review. Her books include Queer Youth Advice for Educators: How to Respect and Protect Your LGBT Students (2011), a chapbook of poetry, Ammonite (2010), and Hip Deep: Opinion, Essays, and Vision from American Teenagers (2005).
For an updated list of works published in TRIVIA, please see this author's contributor page.
For an updated list of works published in TRIVIA, please see this author's contributor page.