HOOLIGAN MAG IS
EDITOR IN CHIEF MORGAN MARTINEZ
MANAGING EDITOR RIVKA YEKER
ASSOCIATE EDITOR ROSIE ACCOLA
special thanks SLOW PULP ANDREW BAKER COLIN SMITH JORDYN BELLI CRISTI LOPEZ GLORIA IMSEIH-PETRELLI LIZZ ORTIZ VINCENT MARTELL SARAH COAKLEY CHARIA ROSE LAWRENCE AGYEI ONYX PREYE ENGOBOR
hooligan mag issue #28
// BY COLIN SMITH // PORTRAITS BY JORDYN BELLI
o t g n i Slo h t w Pulp does every As a band that grew up together, Slow Pulp have known each other for so long that they’re a small family. Over a decade ago, they were playing different music with a different name, but the chemistry all began before high school. While they’re too embarrassed to talk about their previous band names now, they chuckle and say they sprinkled in “uninformed funk.” The band began when bassist Alex Leeds’ dad would wrangle the kids and drive them to practice.
r e h t e g
slow pulp slow pulp slow pulp slow pulp
Drummer Teddy Matthews welcomed me into the band’s Logan Square apartment on one of the first hot days of the year, when April greets us with summer and winter days during the same week. The Madison, Wisconsin natives each moved to Chicago over the past several months, as they finished school. Nowadays, the band is living together, recording together, and touring together. The band even use a few instruments Leeds’ father crafted now that he’s learning new skills early in his retirement (Post Animal’s Jake Hirshland, another friend from home, is also testing the gear). “He has always been really good about having a parallel interest,” Leeds said. Matthews moved here earlier than the rest of the band, securing their current apartment, and has since moved down the street to live with his friends in Twin Peaks and Post Animal. Frontwoman Emily Massey got here more recently. She’s a bit younger than the rest of the band, and she dropped out of school after the band gained more momentum. “As I became less sure of whether school was what I wanted to do, I became surer the band was what I wanted to focus on.”
“
the new EP is the first thing that we all pretty much started from the beginning together.
”
Moving here, she said, was a big shift for them. Guitarist Henry Stoehr said, “The goal was always to be working on music once we got here.” The rest of the band nods in agreement, “…that’s been the expectation, and there’ve been no surprises yet.” Chicago readily welcomed the band, as they headlined a sold-out show at Schubas just after the band fully moved here at the beginning of the year. Earlier this winter, they supported Vundabar for a stretch of the tour across the upper Midwest, then they made the indie band pilgrimage to SXSW, and received several write-ups in national publications along the way.
And though they’ve since caught the attention of The Fader, NPR, and Stereogum, the band only expected to get a fraction of their current listeners. Now, their single from last fall, “Steel Birds,” has garnered more than one million streams on Spotify alone. The band became a focus for them about two years ago when the YouTube curator TheLazyLazyMe discovered their song “Preoccupied.” “A lot of people reacted to it — a lot more than we had ever expected,” Massey said, “and this forced us to take this more seriously.” Their upcoming EP, titled Big Day, begins with ambient textures built with guitar effects and a tinkling piano. Soon, static and fuzz welcome a staccato guitar to chop up the soundscape they so gently painted. Their sound invites afternoon daydreams — which are aided by Massey’s airy vocals — but their crunchy guitars give their songs tension and structure. The recently released single “High” captures their dreamy aesthetic and anxiety-laden lyrics well. “Oh, my shirt sits on my body / like it’s not for me,” Massey sings, “and now I’m trying to find my way out / I wish I knew how.” It’s no wonder the band has caught on with YouTube playlist tastemakers, as their psychedelic textures meld with reading, working, commuting, or traveling. Their songs feel cinematic, making a simple train ride across town play out like a scene. The band recorded the new EP in a remote cabin in Paw Paw, Michigan, where Post Animal also records (including their record from last year, When I Think of You in a Castle). But it’s apparently haunted. “We almost didn’t go, we thought it might ruin the energy of the band!” Massey said. “And all the haunting supposedly happens upstairs, so we all slept next to each other downstairs on sleeping mats in the living room, even though there were beds upstairs.” The band collectively laughs. “We didn’t leave two rooms for five days because it was winter,” she added. Bassist Alex Leeds said, “We went to the grocery store just to hang out!” They record, mix and master themselves, thanks to guitarist Henri Stoehr’s audio prowess. However, their songwriting process before the new EP was more solitary. Someone would craft an instrumental, then Massey would take it to her room to bounce off vocal ideas, saying, “it was really fragmented and really slow.” Leeds said, “the new EP is the first thing that we all pretty much started from the beginning together.” Being together and working on music has been their constant over the past two years — not to mention being the only expectation. Now that they live together, have found a community in Chicago, and garnered more listeners than they ever expected, they’ve made the band a bigger focus than ever. Their chemistry works so well for them because Slow Pulp is more than just a band. As Massey said, “we’re a family.”
Slow Pulp will be kicking off their upcoming North American tour at the end of May to support Remo Drive for 29 shows and to support their new EP Big Day. The EP will be available on May 15.
// BY GLORIA IMSEIH-PETRELLI // PORTRAITS BY LIZZ ORITZ
It’s a freezing, gray, afternoon, even though it’s the end of March. I’m meeting Cristi López in a coffee shop on a Saturday afternoon in Wicker Park. Naturally, I’m surrounded by serious looking white men in too-trendy outfits, typing away at the next great American novel as I scan the crowd for Cristi; I know what she looks like because I follow her on Instagram, a strange semi-novel reality of being a young person, that we laugh over once I finally find her. A recent Gainesville, Florida transplant, Cristi’s portfolio is fairly prolific. A glance at her website or Instagram, and you’ll see a variety of paintings, illustrations, even poetic short stories featuring predominantly womxn at their most intimate: in states of undress, cutting their hair, weeping, eating. Each piece has a narrative structure, every womxn was in the middle of a story, and I wanted to know more about the storyteller.
Cristi is incredibly gracious: easy to talk to and laugh with, and we quickly discover we are both the children of immigrants. She is of Dominican, Cuban, and Spanish descent. Being mixed race and first generation myself, I am endlessly fascinated with the ways identity informs the stories artists tell. We begin to talk about culture and she tells me about the origin of predominant iconography in her work: string and balls of yarn. “One of the first pieces I created with that motif, I made when I was 18. I was in this experimental, high concept art program at the University of Florida … I made a piece that was these two or three balls of yarn, and the strings coming together to form this human figure that was comprised of all of these different sources. The piece was a pretty simple metaphor describing how I have always felt that my identity is...I have one foot in the U.S., one foot in the Dominican Republic; I’ve never been to Cuba, I’ve been to Spain only as a tourist. I’m not ‘Latina’ enough for people here to consider me ‘Latina’, but when I’m the Dominican Republic, I’m considered white. I’m considered a tourist. I live in this limbic state.” We talk more about this neither-here-nor-thereness, and the constant reckoning with being authentic to your own voice and identity, Cristi remarks, “My parents are immigrants and they really instantiated this idea that wherever you go is home, you make it work. You push forward.” This seems to speak to Cristi’s way of being as well as her way of making: appreciate your circumstances and remember where you’ve come from. I ask how her background, and this mentality, inform her work. “Even just in aesthetic ways. My color palette is really warm. Where I’m from in Florida is a swamp. There’s something about the humidity or something that makes the Sun so golden. It seeps into everything, everything glows and is kind of hazy. There’s this dreaminess to it-” She laughs, “I mean, it’s a hell hole, it’s so hot, but that dreaminess … is so different than anywhere I’ve been. Those bright, saturated colors from there and that golden light. That finds its way in my artwork, probably in ways that I’m not even cognizant of.”
This so clearly translates to her illustrations and paintings. It feels as though every subject is bathed in golden light, almost as if they’re swimming in it. That lyrical sense of motion she captures is something incredibly unique; the execution takes a skilled hand and a keen eye. I ruminate on this as I take notes and stop“So, why painting?” “I’ve been drawing since I was a child … that’s always been my primary mode of expression. When I got to high school, I focused primarily on photography. I found that it was a comfortable way to express myself … I’ve never felt connected to my physical appearance. I was always shutting it down. There were things about my appearance that didn’t mesh with the environment I was in, so photography was this thing that allowed me to control how I presented myself to the world. It allowed me to explore and post things that maybe didn’t mesh with a girl from a Catholic, Latin American family. Photography made me feel so powerful, in my own expression.” She remembers initially wanting to be a fashion photographer. “That was my absolute goal. Then, my first year of college, I had this amazing opportunity with my photography where I was featured on Vogue Italia, they take submissions from amateur photographers and feature a different work every day on their website. I had a show in Milan, it got wild after that. But at some point, it hit me: I don’t want to do this. This isn’t it. I don’t feel connected enough to the work. There’s a detachment, just by the very nature of photography, which for me personally, didn’t work. I needed my hands. My hands were my first language. As I was having these revelations, I was also really getting back into my drawing. I decided I wanted to transfer schools. I wanted to go to a school where I could really focus on technique.” She laughs, commenting that she sounds dramatic. I assure her, I live for a dramatic, life-changing revelation. She set out to apply to art schools that would give her the classical, technique-driven training she was craving saying at one point, “I wanted to get to know the language before I could speak it.” Cristi found herself at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL, taking as many figure drawing classes as she could manage. It was there where she developed her foundational, technical skills as a painter.
Gator Chomp colored pencil, ink, and acrylic on paper 11” x 14” 2019
Nieve colored pencil, ink, and acrylic on paper 11” x 14” 2019
It’s interesting that language comes up in regards to her visual art, as she also pairs her illustrations with short stories. “It’s always helped me to write out my thoughts. My mind itself is a cacophony, there’s so much going on. I find that my truth is often distilled if I can just write. Whatever I’m writing feels more real than the noise in my head.” After I make a note to embroider that quote on a pillow, I refer back to her writing. They feel like a natural extension of her paintings, each of her women could jump right out of their frame and into her stories. They feel so naturally and intrinsically connected, and I asked if she plans on continuing to marry her words and her images. “I’d definitely like to share more. I can’t look at my pieces that are inspired by my short stories and poems without hearing the story.” I’m glad about this. Her writing has the same soft, visually alluring tone that her paintings do. One story that stands out in my mind entitled The Angry Daisy, tells the story of a masochistic, emotionally abusive daisy, and the girl who tried to keep it happy. It is striking, heartbreaking, and familiar. I think of myself and all the womxn I know who’ve wasted tears on daisies that would only ever want more. “I never want it to feel like exploitation. I never want the viewer to relish in her pain. I want to show that this is an emotion. This is real. Within her vulnerability, she is strong. She’s bold, beautiful, and strong and vulnerable. Among many things, that’s what I hope to communicate. My work is delicate, but it is bold. As am I. I can be very soft, and very feminine, but when I decide to speak my mind or laugh really loud, I’m in your face a little bit. That conflict elicits a conflict in how I’m perceived and conflict in me. Deciding who I have to choose to be, and now realizing I can be both.”
“
I am chaos. I am volatile. And that’s beautiful. I’m learning to love that about myself, but we do not live in a culture where that is honored.
”
This balancing act of softness while taking up the space necessary to survive as a womxn in this world and what it can do to a body/mind/soul reminded me of a reference in Cristi’s bio to her wanting to apply her work to self-help and mental health-related content. I asked her about this and the view of ‘art as therapy’ writ large. “I love to read about psychology, self-help, and mental health. I’ve found in that genre, the art is TRASH. Like stock photo trash. My ultimate goal is that I want to be an illustrator and artist who brings awareness to these mental health issues by acting as that initial interim. At this point, there’s no title, image, or slogan that we haven’t seen five million times. If I can make work that’s personal, allegorical, and relevant to anxiety, depression, general mental health struggles, and create that bridge to make that content more accessible, maybe people can find their way to healing faster. That’s my ultimate goal. That obviously comes from my own struggles, which is why I want to make this helpful and important literature which has been so inaccessible more relevant and bridge that gap.” Hearing her articulate this makes my perception of Cristi’s work so clear to me. Her work is an honoring of struggle, an honoring of womxnhood and sisterhood as divine medicine. She is bold and she is brave. She is fighting for a world that is softer and more vulnerable through her art. Her work reminds you to slow down and check in with yourself, to kiss yourself on the forehead, as one of her subjects does in my favorite piece of hers. It also reminds you that you’re flawed, and hurting; she celebrates those open wounds and makes space to air them out. There’s no healing without recognition, and her work is both healing and recognition. “I am chaos. I am volatile. And that’s beautiful. I’m learning to love that about myself, but we do not live in a culture where that is honored. If I can embody that in my work and honor it that way, then fuck yeah, that’s what I’m going to do.”. The author has chosen to use “womxn” in an effort to broaden the scope of the non-male experience and be inclusive to as many voices as possible.
Colitas marker and oil on paper 30” x 40” 2018
The Angry Daisy marker and oil on paper 30” x 40” 2018
interviewed by CHARIA ROSE
photographed by LAWRENCE AGYEI
styled by ONYX PREYE ENGOBOR THE POWER OF COMMUNITY THE POWER OF COMMUNITY THE POWER OF COMMUNITY THE POWER OF COMMUNITY
Community is, by definition, a “group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.� It seems like such a simple concept at first, but when you break down how difficult it can be to build and sustain healthy, mutually beneficial communal spaces, the conversation starts to get muddy. Vincent Martell lives in the mud and has dedicated his life to purifying it into fresh water. Vincent is the founder of VAM production studios, a one-stop shop production house for both original and branded content. To call it a hometown production company is almost bewildering since VAM has done work for the likes of Apple and Red Bull, and music videos for artists like JunglePussy, drag queen Shea Coulee, Jamila Woods and Chance the Rapper. Vincent is in the process of building an empire, and at the center of it all, is his foundation: a community of queer, black and brown people.
Some people radiate an energy that captures you. They make you desire more and wonder how you ever made it through life without knowing them. Vincent is one of those people. I was enamored instantly; his words and cadence are so full of life that I felt like a kid in kindergarten listening to their teacher tell a story. This is a long way of saying: Vincent is no average person. Born in Toledo, Ohio, but spending most of his formative years there and Chicago, he is a true Midwesterner. He lives for his work and works to provide for those he loves the most. His experience being mostly raised by his mother and other women in his family has crafted a lot of the way he loves, works and creates community. He explains, “As a gay, black man, the first experience of being loved was from Black women. That is something that I hold very close to me. I want to pay homage to them… They shaped the man that I am today”. He frequently goes back to a study abroad trip he took to Barcelona, a trip that was so fundamental into molding his style and love for the arts. “I wasn’t out yet, my family kind of scraped together the funds to send me abroad to study. That’s my introduction to this underground art scene of amazing queer womxn and femmes. I think as a gay black person, experiencing that environment, feeling free, and being free to create whatever I wanted kind of sparked the idea that maybe I can take this back home to Chicago and do something big with it.” Vincent is passionate about everything he does. From the way he views fashion, to his relationships and the state of the film industry. A lot of people say that they are invested in cultivating marginalized voices and bringing them to the forefront, but Vincent is one of the few people actually making shit happen. Chicago is a complicated lover, a place that can reach down and bring out joy, friendship, and a lifestyle adapted to your liking. But, at the same time, Chicago can bring forth feelings of fear, racism and hatred. It was intentional for Vincent to stay and build his brand there. As someone who has moved away from the city, I wanted to understand why he stayed.. He speaks about Chicago as if it were an old friend, coming to terms with the balance of its good and ugly sides. He said, “One thing I’ve learned through my self-care is that I have to look at Chicago on a micro level, so I only try to focus on my community, and what’s going on within that community...VAM is built by a community. It’s pushed and promoted by the community. This isn’t very present in other metropolitan cities. There is this mentality that is so powerful in Chicago, where you can reach out to whoever and collaborate on a much deeper level than some cities … There’s this kind of Midwest, blue-collar mentality here in Chicago that I just love. I feel so incredibly safe here. As a gay filmmaker, it is important for me to have that kind of support. Especially doing and creating the sort of content I’m creating. I think at this point, I just want to continue to feel safe. Chicago does that in such a beautiful and rich way.”
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You don’t really know liberation until you know yourself.
”
Inspired by the works of Gasper Noé and Claire Denis, his directorial style is gritty and honest, never shying away from bringing that darkness to light, while still having heart and hopefulness weaved through it. His most recent project which he co-wrote with two other gay men of color – KB Woodson and Zak Payne, is the web series DAMAGED GOODS. The series brings his talents to the forefront, presenting a messy yet earnest depiction of four young creatives of color, just trying to figure their shit out in the art scene of Chicago. Vincent speaks of the trials and joys of bringing it to light. “I didn’t think creating a narrative would be easy, specifically a web series. But to be in it, in the thick of it, you really get a taste of how daunting it can be. [The show] is less about tragedy and focuses on how these characters lean on one another as a chosen family. I was tired of seeing us in tragic circumstances time after time in mainstream media. So, in DG, you have these beautiful moments of community where they go to Queen nightclub. They go to an underground DIY event and smoke a blunt together. And they drink tea together in the morning. All these really cool and intimate moments that make up the series and show a different perspective. These characters are so incredibly messy. They are so fucked up. I wanted to show how nuanced we can be. It’s a messy series about messy characters of color who are hustling, but also showing love to one another.” Physical space is important, but mental and emotional space is crucial to cultivating the community and visions in Vincent’s mind. VAM is that vision. It is the culmination of an artists’ wildest dreams. Creatives of different mindsets, backgrounds, and capabilities coming together to reimagine our world. It was something that Vincent was extremely adamant and intentional about setting up. His voice lights up when I ask about why he wanted VAM to be able to do any and everything.
“I think it was so incredibly important for us to prove that we could do all of the work. It’s so easy for [people like] us to get pigeonholed and put into a box. To only do one sort of thing. And you hear that in Hollywood all the time specifically for black filmmakers. So, in the fabric of VAM I wanted to make sure we can do whatever we want to do and not be afraid to go there! I think there is so much power in being able to create whatever you want to create. And as a POC running a business, that is so important for me. I want to make sure that my team feels as if they can do anything. That is shown in our portfolio of work.” He continues, “It’s a collective. It’s a production crew. It’s an inclusive team filled with filmmakers like Sam Bailey and Fatimah Asghar. And great cinematographers like Hannah Welever who shot BROWN GIRLS. Jordan Phelps, my partner, is also on the VAM team as well. So, not only are we pushing the narrative forward, but we are doing it in a way that is community-oriented. That is something I feel very very close to. Creating with intention shows, and when there is so much love behind the camera I always feel as though that translates. One thing I wanted to do was give my people quality. In a way that they haven’t received it before. I also come from the school of Sam Bailey, so I gotta make that bitch proud.” Freedom is another thing that Vincent is passionate about. Freedom of expression, of self and creativity. He strives to provide that for his community through his work. To him, that is what being an artist is all about: allowing space for those that often don’t get to speak for themselves. To show that freedom is possible and to be truly liberated is to love oneself. “I think right now, in my life, liberation is me being comfortable with ME. As crazy as it sounds, you don’t really know liberation until you know yourself. And I am just now getting to a place where I fully feel comfortable being me, my voice and what I have to give to the world. And that has been so liberating… I think it’s important to take risks and continue to explore because there are so many people in my family and in my life, specifically black men, who didn’t get the opportunity to just go for their dream due to societal pressures and societal bullshit. When I wake up, even when I am so incredibly depressed and stressed, I think about all the black people in my life who didn’t get the chance to chase their dreams and go for it and take risks. That is all my work is about. Speaking to my community and doing it in an unapologetic way that is also freeing for me. That can be a beautiful moment of self-care.” For VAM, he sees nothing less than world domination, planning to take it global and covering everything from network television to feature films. “All we need to do is get in the door, and once we do, we always prove that we can do the work, and that we can do it well. We just need the opportunity to do it. Which should not be tough. The industry has molded itself to not be accessible to us. To own my own production company at 28, for a black gay man, is revolutionary within itself. And for us to be as successful as we are, so early on, is a testament to what happens when you give us access. Period!” Vincent is doing important work. Whether it be through VAM or his own personal mission, he is on the ground floor, his hands covered in mud as he works to make the world the place it deserves to be. And he has no complaints, it is simply what must be done. Period.
SPILLED INK SPILLED INK SPILLED INK SPILLED INK
NOTRE by Emilie Kneifel
when the cathedral caught flame i was glad / for my quiet. my instagram buried / no tributes to glinting. when dad came home and said: as soon i heard, i warped right back / there, that once that last / photo he took, his easy knees crouching, big brother’s bulging mouth / a sprout beside her divine. her good forehead / surpassing the spires, her widow’s peak aiming for / us. we heavens. we heathens. little brother and me, two more sweaters tied to her waist / her waste / her knee. he warped back but i know / he can’t remember the click. i warped, he says, but then again so did everyone, probably. probably. i think: funny how we writhe when it’s ours, our splintering monument / moment / maman — how we huff our own ash til it burns. and it burns.
BAR SOAP DIGNITY by Leka Gopal
YOU SMELL LIKE FABRIC SOFTENER and the RAW AIR from YOUR KITCHEN WINDOW I WISH that WAS the SCENT of SUMMER RAIN so I COULD NEVER FORGET the WAY YOU LAUGHED like SUGAR not HONEY ((CRINKLED EYES and LOST BREATHS)) I NEVER KNEW CONTENTMENT until YOU THOUGHT I WAS FUNNY
YOU TASTE like CHERRY COUGH SYRUP but I DON’T MIND IT’S the SAME SENSATION as WHEN RAIN HITS YOUR BACK and INSTEAD of the FREEZING COLD SCARS ALL YOU FEEL IS WARMTH ((YOUR SHORTBED TRUCK and the SUNBURNT FABRIC SEATS)) WHO’S the VISION on YOUR MIND YOU KISS like NECTAR and FUCK like ARROWS TIME and TIME AGAIN NO WAY to GO but UP ((DIRECTIONALLY CHALLENGED THAT’S TOWARDS HEAVEN and CHICAGO)) FARTHER from GOD and CLOSER to the MORNING DEW
EDGINESS by Jacob Kobina Ayiah Mensah
The cloudstreet hums, walls vibrate, tears drop, rooms are filled with sea currents, everything is marching from sickly smile. Every part of us is floating, Everything in parts crosses the rough strip and every house, we are, loses its weight, shadows follow, the shape of things to come remains formlessly. The others still rest in the room just above us, a few staircases float and through the door of this chateau by the guard, where you are lodging, dreams left behind in empty bowls that have not been washed after a supper in a decade ago, the pull date which is placed on your life and my silence remains pulled pork, I am returning from the smithy after forging a skin over and over again at cross purposes, I a room for a dream in a feverish dream, I begin to parch, leaving hours beyond the bottom of an empty kettle, furred with a long service the sight of glasses, the impossibility of going out from a city of rainclouds of matches box buildings, the indelible look of regret is painted,
time passes thirty years, we still lie on our stomach on the couch in awake, predicting forthcoming changes, everything through the blur of the water, coming its way is a ray of moonlight in the mud waters without shedding itself, everything is looking like a urine sample, in capricious taste standing in elegant curved stone, everything remains everything, everything remains anything, I grope for your images, I am avoiding looking at you in the mirror with a found body which is still opulent, reflecting a deep hollow left by the washing, left by the waters.
SALT THE BODY UNTIL IT IS CURED by Eileen Winn
Without smugness in wellness or doubt that comes with sickness, we will build a glad home from the old bone. We will patch the cracks with sugar paste for its sweetness and its strength, equal parts piercing shine and soft shimmer. Infertility: what happens to be an exercise in spelunking and restraint. Will you bring your own light to the cave-backed skull? Will you query, foothold on which we all tremble? You must tend that long-lit flame, bow into agreement that when it goes out only dark will fold around me: no mother, no arms, no sharp crease of the photo still carrying your face. At the bottom, limestone absorbs even the skeleton of doubt.
LAKE MICHIGAN AT NIGHT 1.3 by Mattie Ganson
all summer [ please come [ please [
lights [ how things [ [ were ] all the way down [ The water [ and I [
We sat [ to the shore [ as the rain [ and we [ as the rain [ When we returned [ we were [ and I [ [ gray [ soft.
UNTIL NEWS ALERT by Amanda Dee
can we melt on, to sidewalk & return as future-selves & roll around in our potentiality rabidwild from knowledge / soaked in minutes totipotent & act on the vision: hands clasped at makeshift pew: SPLASH US, pls SPLASH baptize these, our future-eyes!! we would be holy then if we let ourselves puddle
but does love dilute every time? they say nothing beats the first high while wisecrackers are all it gets better in Time so to preserve what’s already dying I brush off warnings I thought I’d learned the first time
but first: is seventy-one percent blue but salt pillars dissolved by ducts of women+ silenced? because my cries don’t make wavepools they turn my cries to lines for young men it’s a very scary time
T’SHUVAH by Caleb Bromberg
Turn a corner and the asphalt smells like rainfall and everything bagels Toasted, smoking poppy rouse my great-grandmother’s nostrils and shtetl sensibilities Quiet, communal ovens mark each egg loaf with a family sign in dough Knuckles run large in our line from the kneading, cracking, molting when the band’s too tight
THE EGG SONNETS by Rachel Reidenbaugh
1. Look at a lamp too long you have to blink Away the shapes of worms curling like e’s. Peek-a-boo always was a sour game. Unlike the baby giggling at a face Wiped clean, plenty of things exist harder When you look past them — even light lingers, Even the poached egg probably still runs, Even sex disappoints when you don’t have To look it in the eye and answer it Yes, when your back is turned I question the Colour of your eye, your hair curled like worms. To you, every letter has its colour. Even when you’re not looking at the “e” You feel just as confident about green. 2. The bridge of your nose is mottled with brown Spots you put there with a pencil. I mean, Write your face how you’d like, there’s plenty who Don’t have the luxury to turn themselves Into the speckled egg and are therefore Not allowed to perform the crack and spill. Most of us are cars catching the yellow Making split decisions to stop or go. I’m young, I make the over-easy choice — The brake and pause — the ‘kitchen sink’ instead Of lending my pencil to outside noise Or even to your freckles — Do they melt By way of sun? Must you deny the itch? I do like my breakfast better scrambled. 3. It’s been ten years since we dug up the yard To find the perfect resting spot for Cat The cat. My plastic shovel struck a pile of loose molars two feet below the dirt. I thought they were pearls, but your told me not To touch, then went inside to make a call. I guess this must be how babies are made — I grabbed an egg from the pantry and dropped It in one of the failed graves. Soon it’d sprout A hen to replace Cat and be my friend. I’d make a meal for you to have in bed And promise never to leave like they did. The next day the cops marked the egg as a Mocking; a man returning to his crime.
thank you thank you thank you thank you
fo
fo
u
for being here or being here for being here or being here