Read the introduction, "This Mid-Air in Which We Tremble: Women & the Avant-Garde" by Chet'la Sebree.
Linen
I take a walk
I look at pictures of myself
How many people do you think die each day
while looking at a picture of themselves?
At night, I lay my outfits
into shapes of people on the ground
Linen
I put on a skeleton costume
and listen to the ringing in my ears
Every time I think of you
My hands work like a woman
Putting another woman’s hair into a ponytail
a state of grace, a doodle,
crotch, seclusion, yawning,
owning, ail
Linen
God has called on me
to wear this breastplate
I don’t pay attention
I come open like a blood
orange red of evening red of
clouds as tall as palm trees
whorled apart
like hair around a drain
Linen
The sea has worn me out
the sea has opened up
a thousand different holes
in me and I have spat myself in each
The sex inside a fist of grass
Tomorrow, I will be as tired as a god
and after that
Elaine Kahn is the managing editor of Flowers & Cream press, performs music under the name Horsebladder and is a founding member of the P.Splash Collective. Her book Women in Public (City Lights) appeared in 2015.
