FACE PLANT

By Kristi Maxwell / Issue 10

My face plants things for me
when I’m sad, anticipates
my sadness. The sore growth
of a pustule, petal as
malleable yellow disk
emerging. Who is Kimberly?
I pick though I don’t choose.
I pick and pick. The shape of smallness
is large enough to be distinguished
human. I resist the resemblance
between humongous and human.
I resist you and fail. A shell
is attainable in my impoverished vision
of an egg. We yoke ourselves, one
to the other, and thus require ‘otherness,’
and thus acquire ‘otherness.’ A hunt
for the carcass of language begins.
Who was Kimberly? A ‘g’ descends
and makes its own nest I attempt to copy
though my punishing body won’t assist.
Seduced by repetition, a crack
listens for its own mending—
permission to make a go at negation again.
Come back to me so I may ease you.
Come back to me so I may erase you.

KRISTI MAXWELL is the author of seven books of poems, including Bright & Hurtless (forthcoming from Ahsahta Press), My My (forthcoming from Saturnalia Books), and PLAN/K (Horse Less Press). Her new work appears in Bennington Review, Black Warrior Review, and Boston Review. She is an assistant professor of English at the University of Louisville.