Issue 27: Charlotte Geater
The 21st Century
where milk rains on sheep
the colour of snow & black
ice. i exited stage left
& right but couldn’t find
my way down to
you were kulning on hillsides
asphalt inside your shoes.
i wasn’t supposed to hear you.
your sheep ate thatch
from roadside shacks
until the whole city
was gone. hands
still organic rotting
in the fields
until a scientist can fix
what’s wrong with the code
that’s changing me.
my eyes are big grains. i whirr
inside a stuck watch. you sing
those unwords again
the sheep in my throat
come crashing across the rocks
this time. my stink of old rain.
i told you i’d write.
the ink barely shows on camera.
i slipped on a patch of ice
& fell thirty feet. the sheep
sunk down in their mud
& dreamt of hay.
hey where’s a trapdoor when you need it?
you shake the milkpan until a shape / this is
not
curds of hillocks / herds of
standing in an old ditch
a box of junkshop postcards
one hunk of cheese
the length of your hand
re-piercing
a fall. long before any pain. my other
ear is silent & glitters
wanting you to whisper iced tea
kisses / cracked walnut shell
my bloody ear in regular recital.
will the sleeper stop the leak.
bloodless this summer, wishing, i understood:
bloodletting as relief from trapped heat
having had so much redacted
i wonder about the addition of cold things
to balance the blood bank
another handful of silver earrings
will you sharpen a new piece of jewellery
crossed blades on my belly
spin backwards, summer ashes red
the fuzzy skin blushes & sweats
for tall glasses of ice and soda.
i prick my finger on each new stud.
let me tease out / a lab-grown confection
where did these burns come from
electric weather inside looking for
spires. dusting the green sky
iris clouds / another hatpin, stainless
a salt crystal at one end tastes
the way blood multiplies in rounds
(an old excavation, and not much was found)
when the heart wills it. our gemstone faces.
Charlotte Geater is based in London and has previously been published in Hotel, Spamzine, and Erotoplasty. She won The White Review Poet’s Prize in 2018.
Copyright © 2022 by Charlotte Geater, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
