Entomology

“I read juuust enough philosophy to remain skeptical of the reality circumventing around me, but like, not enough philosophy to really know what I’m talking about.”

"You have a huge mosquito bite on your back,” Becca said, ignoring me. 

“It's angry and red and quite noticeable. I might have some ointment.” Becca rummaged in her bag.

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Not Your Neighbour

It was a still night. It hadn’t snowed, but the air felt cold and cushioned like it could. The naked branches loomed above and the occasional motion light cast spidered shadows on the pavement where I tread. I was walking home, mitten-less, as usual. Hands moist and shoved inside my pockets. Keeping a brisk pace as the air stung at my ear lobes and exposed slivers of cheek. The pain was pleasant, numbed by the cheap wine that warmed my core. I felt like a small animal. Alert, even if half-drunk. But also comfortable in the dark. I felt belonging there.

 I was coming home from a witchy, pagan-themed Halloween party — my circle’s femme take on the holiday. We’d dipped hearty chunks of sour dough into boozy cheese fondue and danced around in black garb. Some friends had hunched over a tarot deck, seeing their futures in the waxy cards. Others broke off, the way women tend to do, in clumped conversations composed of intense eye contact and reassuring coos. You’re a bombshell Brittney. He doesn’t know what he’s missing. I’d smirked when I overheard someone respond to a question about their husband with an exasperated, Oh, you know Connor. He’s in a perpetual state of crisis.

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Back to the body

We make movement sentences,
phrases strung in motion:
low forms, the crescent of feet,
the grammar of backs, of bone.
Arguments edging a line,
oscillating and arching,
as if to say yes and no at once.

Little bouts; these dynamic intimacies.
How abruptly they can cease.
I’ll eat the blueberries that run along the floor,
and drink tap water from a dirty glass;
savouring the reek of hops and sour.
I try not to wonder, what I want.
Let's give that question up, and,
step back,
back to the body.

More often now,
I think of the hard pressure of body weight on tip-toe.
Subtle conversations, I suppose.