Ankh Spice
Put down the knife
Morning finds us beached. In its socket we find the fishing line, lead sinker swinging
a droplet of shadow. No hook. Snarled on the rocks, too far out too far gone
to ever get free. I will think of it each time you know my reach: love I think
you’re getting too tired to swim. I’m not so sure you knew when we began
to fall how equal we’d tide up for mercy. We swing back and forth. A kid threads weight
through the eye of a tyre—instinct, experiment, move just so, it flies the view
from mussel to shark, pink to blue. Your fingers, minnowing safe
into my wave, my too-much-for-a-man. Strappy kelp, messy growth and I love that we still
hold hands it means when we walk four arms describe a pendulum, the arc never planned
before the tangle. I’ve learned there are things that for all their heavy never sink us--
just dangle, gods-know-just-how-long. What incidentally tender purpose, this wild-invisible
connection of distant points. A couple of horizon islands tick long together, mapped spit-
to-spit on a secret continuum, and all that appreciates the miracle of their join is here;
cunning smile of curved earth, unhooked bait in a drip of shade, a lead weight abandoned
as easily replaced. And now, us. I mean if anyone ever shut up for a second
about what shapes are worth saving, which knot curves right to be tied with which,
sat their judge down quiet on this giddy rock: heard a line or two singing—so queered
by tension the sweep cuts keen through the noise: oh come on then you. Hate like gravity,
it’s never stopped trying to take us down. Saw not a problem awaiting a blade
but a familiar pulse, brazening away. Not the drag but the force that stops us all falling
off the world; plumbs us in, tugs out the whoop at the top of the swing, sines
the wave. That lets anyone put down the knife, the lead. I mean the force that draws
one lost body, teardropped to ghost, now no burden at all, toward another. Call it
momentum, that we still found more, more than one way to say stop just stop
this. You won’t find the end to begin to untie us. We move in each other, just like you,
tangled and moved by all of this too. The weapon reflects your own face as you raise it.
a droplet of shadow. No hook. Snarled on the rocks, too far out too far gone
to ever get free. I will think of it each time you know my reach: love I think
you’re getting too tired to swim. I’m not so sure you knew when we began
to fall how equal we’d tide up for mercy. We swing back and forth. A kid threads weight
through the eye of a tyre—instinct, experiment, move just so, it flies the view
from mussel to shark, pink to blue. Your fingers, minnowing safe
into my wave, my too-much-for-a-man. Strappy kelp, messy growth and I love that we still
hold hands it means when we walk four arms describe a pendulum, the arc never planned
before the tangle. I’ve learned there are things that for all their heavy never sink us--
just dangle, gods-know-just-how-long. What incidentally tender purpose, this wild-invisible
connection of distant points. A couple of horizon islands tick long together, mapped spit-
to-spit on a secret continuum, and all that appreciates the miracle of their join is here;
cunning smile of curved earth, unhooked bait in a drip of shade, a lead weight abandoned
as easily replaced. And now, us. I mean if anyone ever shut up for a second
about what shapes are worth saving, which knot curves right to be tied with which,
sat their judge down quiet on this giddy rock: heard a line or two singing—so queered
by tension the sweep cuts keen through the noise: oh come on then you. Hate like gravity,
it’s never stopped trying to take us down. Saw not a problem awaiting a blade
but a familiar pulse, brazening away. Not the drag but the force that stops us all falling
off the world; plumbs us in, tugs out the whoop at the top of the swing, sines
the wave. That lets anyone put down the knife, the lead. I mean the force that draws
one lost body, teardropped to ghost, now no burden at all, toward another. Call it
momentum, that we still found more, more than one way to say stop just stop
this. You won’t find the end to begin to untie us. We move in each other, just like you,
tangled and moved by all of this too. The weapon reflects your own face as you raise it.
Biography
Ankh Spice is a queer, sea-obsessed poet from Aotearoa New Zealand. His poetry is widely published, eight times nominated for Pushcart Prize/Best of the Net, and was joint winner of The Poetry Archive's WorldView2020 competition. He co-edits at Ice Floe Press and is a poetry contributing editor at Barren Magazine. Ankh's debut poetry collection, The Water Engine (2021) is available from Femme Salvé Press. Find him on the web: ankhspice-seagoatscreamspoetry.com, on Twitter: @SeaGoatScreams, and on Facebook: AnkhSpiceSeaGoatScreamsPoetry
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