issue two / celestial
cusping adolescence
Hannah Shapiro
content warnings: brief mentions of guns, hunting, sex
I ask my mother, what would happen if my body was wrung out like a rag / secretions of the flesh falling
onto the grass like raindrops / watering the earth with our bodies / the sounds they make / the movements
like breaking bread into crumb to form something sweeter / what is to become of two boys / cusping
adolescence, palms sticking to each other like dew / stretching last night’s moonlight into the dawn / like
liquified silver / passing through our hands like river water / melting chains into lockets / keeping your
picture on my pulse / safer there than under the feathers of dead geese / the reminder of your dad taking
you hunting / the screams spilling out of the forest / your finger hot on the trigger / fingers that find me /
this body its own sort of gun / your hands finding the soft spots / pressing in deep like into the bruise of a
pear / juice frothing around your finger / sweet with rot / my mother asks me what you mean to me / I turn
away and answer to the trees / you mean the sweat salting the goose feathers / my own flesh / pimpled at
the sight of you / the hearth of me / swelling in my jeans / not the staying / but the waking up at dawn
with a smudge of light / to guide your leaving
onto the grass like raindrops / watering the earth with our bodies / the sounds they make / the movements
like breaking bread into crumb to form something sweeter / what is to become of two boys / cusping
adolescence, palms sticking to each other like dew / stretching last night’s moonlight into the dawn / like
liquified silver / passing through our hands like river water / melting chains into lockets / keeping your
picture on my pulse / safer there than under the feathers of dead geese / the reminder of your dad taking
you hunting / the screams spilling out of the forest / your finger hot on the trigger / fingers that find me /
this body its own sort of gun / your hands finding the soft spots / pressing in deep like into the bruise of a
pear / juice frothing around your finger / sweet with rot / my mother asks me what you mean to me / I turn
away and answer to the trees / you mean the sweat salting the goose feathers / my own flesh / pimpled at
the sight of you / the hearth of me / swelling in my jeans / not the staying / but the waking up at dawn
with a smudge of light / to guide your leaving
Hannah Shapiro (she/they) lives and writes on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe Nation. She holds a BA in English Literature from Carleton University. Their work has been performed by various schools and production companies. This is her first poetry publication.