& when i jump the sky will catch me
i have lived my whole life in a city.
in a body-skyscraper. don’t try to move
me—i will resist. it is always colder
near my head. i cannot sleep
in socks. my bones are metal beams,
structural & unseemly. i fight
my skyscraper’s natural urge
to stand tall. to take up
space. i am too sturdy
to be knocked
sideways by wind. other bodies
swirl around me like leaves.
i envy their delicacy. i want
to be crunched underfoot.
i do not want to be crunched
underfoot. i barricade a door
with my body to stop a child
from running away. he sees
my body as an obstacle. i see
my body as an obstacle to overcome.
take the elevator to the top
of my body & let the wind
whinge in your ears. can you
hear that? so much
howling. when the lights go out
in the city i am the only body
left awake.
SENTINEL SPECIES
an illustration
or an illusion, or perhaps an illness
where ill determines a problem to be solved
a problem like the body a trembling
of finches, for example: flung down
a coal mine / if she returns to me
i am safe to remain or
am i your early warning signal (if i float
if i can swim if i can breathe underwater)
they’ve done this
to us before, used our bodies as sentinel species
& i dream i am coughing up feathers,
bright yellow & downy soft
Kathryne David Gargano (she/her) hails from the Pacific Northwest, but isn’t very good at climbing trees. She is a doctoral candidate in poetry at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and focuses on feminist and queer retellings of myths and fairy tales. Her fiction has been published in The Arkansas International, and her poetry can be found or is forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Sonora Review, Tahoma Review, and others. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram @doubtfulljoy.
Photo by Frans Van Heerden from Pexels