Boxing, Changing Room Sonnet, & Nightgown (Chapter 11) by Joel Keith
Boxing
In my house—the house I live in
two, three nights a week—the box
the bin came in became the recycling
bin until we got a proper one, and so
it still is. It's been nine months. No,
punk, I'm not a fan. But then
I never bought one. Some man
lives in my best friend's old room
now, keeps sacks of protein powder by the
fridge. He counts his calories and talks
about the gym membership he keeps
meaning to buy, reminding me of all
the ways I found to hate my body
before I settled on the ways I hate it now
which are more interesting and progressive.
Fuck no I don't mow the lawn,
the flowers are too pretty. I
set alarms each night to ring
all morning which I ignore as if
my life were a needy hotel guest
and I its put-upon concierge, sighing,
going back to my book. To think
this is the house we spent our first
nights in together. To think this is the
bed. Now I spend most nights a week
at your place, where you have placed
a rug on my side of the bed and a box
for my stuff, and half your groceries,
okay a little less than half, all
the important ones, the bread,
tomatoes, eggs, I bought. Oh
dear I love you. Oh dear how un-
poetic of me. I love you, I love you,
I love you, I will not break the line
there, it is you I love, not love, not
poetry, or those things too, but
you, Stella, you. And there, I've
written into dawn. I will not mow
the lawn. I miss it here already.
Changing Room Sonnet
New pants, you say, are what you need: re-dressed
shape, boxy, pocketed, a form to fill
out, sports bra, binder, tightening the chest
to quicken it, quicken the body's will
to breathe, reminding it of breath and what
it is to be breathed through, that breath bound for—
You like the smell of butcher meats, fresh-cut
(clearly, my love, an editor before
a vegetarian)—I like you seeing
me in the morning mirror perform
countless tiny violences, cleaning
up my chin…here, love, the clearing takes form
from the thicket it resists: the body,
softly prickling, affirms entirely.
Nightgown (Chapter 11)
When I am asleep I pull
the sheets over to my side of the bed
and you with them.
This morning I woke
alone
to find I had done so again
as if to pull you all the way across the city to me
in sleep.
What is dreaming but desire
at work twisting its distances into itself,
awaking spun up like a rope?
Find more from Joel over on Instagram!
