I’m Aphrodite, bitches by Anya Johanna Deniro
the sea…
the stillness overhead and below…
the sky is unfortunately an american library…
the waves…
the moth-eaten flame never dies…
the doves…
the doves flushed out of the thicket…
the thorns…
the sky…
when summer dies the night needs a flower…
I go home…
my memories are a storage facility…
where is home…
I go home…
home never dies…
the claw machine scrapes at my hand…
the claw machine asks for food…
the claw machine grabs my hand…
the hour is late…
I feed the claw machine…
in the dream I climb a cell phone tower until there is no more…
fall in love with the signal entwined…
just do one thing…
just do one thing and it will be all right…
then another thing can be done…
that’s what the flame keeps saying…
but the doves say other things…
the wave-lapped doves…
the genitals floating on the sea…
the genitals washing ashore…
october 7: orchiectomy…
written on the rock…
written in the desert on the back of an asp…
severed and thrown into the sea…
the waves wanton in kythira…
the storage facilities of kythira…
the sea is a desert but with water…
the tower moth-ridden over the sea…
the data center on stilts buckling under the waves…
the pink lather of the waves…
the pink conches…
the periwinkles…
the jellyfish corpses strewn and dying in the morning…
I got a little tired but it’s ok…
did this charge overnight…
I can’t sleep…
the air conditioning messed up…
am I going to make it through the day…
I can’t find the others…
the others are supposedly here with me…
in the dream I have to return library books…
one by one they’ve fallen on the street…
the myrtles skitter in the wind…
I’m so tired…
the books keep slipping from my hands…
the chariots turning corners sharply…
the snipers on the roofs…
the snipers atop the data centers…
the commissars inside the data centers…
I bundle up the books…
the library is on fire…
I wake up…
I make coffee…
I feed the claw machine again...
cast aside the tidings of the knife…
listen to the waves of doves…
the doves crying for slumber…
the myrtles crying for remembrance…
the drones pass overhead…
close to the window…
the tears streaming down my face…
at some point I will cut from this poem…
I will throw the remnants into the sea…
I don’t know what parts yet…
I cut and cut…
I’ve fought time to a draw…
I’ve become a myrtle of despair…
my children don’t exist outside of time…
they grow and grow…
they play soccer…
they give soccer up…
they run from the soccer field...
they hide in the woods…
if I could sit in silence for several days…
death crackles in the streets…
here I stand devoid of rigor…
yet under the knife…
the space inside the aperture…
over the sea…
the moth-devoured sea…
coming up for air…
testimony rising up from my body…
in the pink sea foam…
beginning but not becoming…
in these death shocked streets…
in these trauma-informed streets…
vaporize time to gain attention…
in pictographs…
in steles…
in seashells…
I make coffee again…
the sparrows fly away…
in romance imperial…
seashells, mirrors, chocolate…
seen and unseen…
to paris while no one is looking…
when the woman I barely knew called me a goddess…
the aegis…
the agency…
the funny pages…
romance imperial…
whipped along my back…
weathering indoors…
the rain lashed along the high ridge…
calling for agency when there is none…
a terrible fate has befallen us…
rereadings in the sea cave…
patched in…
make breakfast…
I don’t eat eggs…
I don’t…
stealing and stealing…
celestial porn…
foam-womb…
sea monkeys live their lives…
born in the sea…
resurrected in a bowl…
go back and read again…
and again…
bespoiled by tyrants…
sirens go off on the street…
she hit me and called me a goddess…
I wake up on the street…
the eternal past, present and future…
crawling to get out…
the impossible firmament of the roof…
the eaves…
seek to destroy…
the sea emotionally unavailable…
the sea unsustainable…
the drones on fire…
rhinestones in the sparrows’ eyes…
the caves of the eyes…
I go to the post office…
the guards scream…
doves on the roof…
the sea crash into the city…
the cave swollen…
they whisper that I’m sick…
I’m terrified…
full of good intentions…
the umarked vans are everywhere…
the sky has seen worse…
giving one’s life for a gas station casino…
everything can change…
my claw machine is starving…
the dew does not make a cameo…
my corpo body still sick…
my corpo body still clocked in…
cutting the phlox for the altar…
cutting the reeds for armor…
corpos primed for street engagement…
the hibiscus sways…
pawning the golden bracelet…
the data center shakes…
the sun bears down on the white villa…
just one thing left to do…
Oct. 7 is my orchiectomy…
the doves are empty tombs…
the american library empties its payload…
no one reads…
leave nothing to chance…
my children go to school…
the wind…
one to another…
aubade to nocturne…
the ice cream melting...
they believe in convictions…
found another way in...
a letter-press rattled apart...
how much ambition is enough...
I fall asleep...
stretched thin...
awakening the foam...
everpresent squalor…
everything seen…
everything unseen…
wind-swept...
wind-fucked...
children torn from beds…
children torn to pieces…
the past is nothing to be fucked with…
it happens again and again…
the maritime laws…
the garbage patch swirls…
genitals entangling…
the hospital collapses…
into a vision…
traipsing…
boots on the ground traipsing…
the stillness of american river systems…
rending and rending…
the lots cast…
the oil tanker…
the dead air…
the hard agree…
trans bodies turned into utility futures…
hardware dies occasionally…
romantic imperial…
the sea…
the anti-sea…
I’m tired…
with waves untold…
I punch out…
the fires keep going…
dead inside…
come across…
mirrored myrtles…
imagining what I could be…
what I forgot to say…
the clouds sail…
unending fire in the desert…
the blood of a dove…
the sphinx moths fly on…
imagine what I could be…
if spirit takes…
if spirit eats…
foam…
sea…
sea…
Anya Johanna DeNiro is a trans woman living in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is the author of the novel OKPsyche from Small Beer Press, and the poetry chapbook From the Yew from Ethel. Her poetry has appeared recently in Delicate Emissions, Radical Catalyst, and Puerto del Sol.