BRODY PARRISH CRAIG





MAW

               —for Chuks

Maw is a word I don’t understand. In theory, it sounds beautiful
& then I remember the origin story of the animal in all of us,
not the ones I know now by Machado or my own momentary hunger,
but the one from the bible where Jesus came with the flood
& a man took the animals two by two—a couplet in the rain
storm named after broadcasters like Katrina. I remember
the hurricanes more than flood: no name for the boy
who stayed, no name for the lack of texts my best friend
worried over after. Things get displaced from time to time.
And people, like animals, fade away. Some nights,
I want to erase my name for myself or the bathroom mirror.
Language comes and goes in this claiming, this string
of words we cannot say—if I told you that I named myself,
would Adam come trickling after, running in a fog of stories
I have confused or conflated or haven’t told yet. Listen,
what I’m trying to say, is my mouth moves cross pages
unproperly. What I’m trying to say is when my mouth shuts,
it's landed on a prayer. My tongue moves back and forth
sometimes, as I’m medicated properly. A side effect
my mother swore to & laughed at me in judgement for.
Maybe the flood’s the aftermath. The smell of love
after it rains. Or maybe, I’m a white flag dove
still hanging on a tree limb—I raise myself to this horizon
like a glass waiting for another’s clinking. I’m trying to trust
myself again. An instinct, animal, in each of us.
I’m trying to find a language cats can read that I can write.
Even in translation, my lips curvature is effortless.
A body is behind this, and for now, I’m quite alive.






AUTOCORRECT: ONE