Cerys Fletcher
You Wonder Why I Will Not Leave The City
after Gary McCormick
I have been selling popcorn for five hours already
When
GARY MCCORMICK from LOCAL RADIO
Arrives at my till & his gravel-road voice
Streams for the first time
Through lips, not the speakers
Of my mum’s car. He asks
For a sauvignon blanc, pays for it,
Then says, no, the other brand of sauvignon blanc,
& so i give it to him, even though there is a
Several dollar price difference between the two,
But who am i to deny GARY MCCORMICK his wine?
& still, what a feeling to match voice & body,
To pretend the two can have anything to do with
Each other, really.
There are places in this city i haven’t been to.
I still find
Whole streets where nothing has
Happened to me. I speak so ill of
This place until i do not, until it shows me
Some unspeakable kindness & i must find
Some new way to love it. New Friend Crystal
At Barrington bus stop
Has left her wallet at home so i pay her fare,
Stock up on luck for the messy week
Looming ahead. She smokes while we wait in the cold.
I should offer you one, but you’re young, she reasons, more to
Herself than to me. I appreciate the sentiment,
I think. I was young, too, when
We watched liquefaction spurt from grass like a slashed
Varicose, someone else’s mother holding
My quaking self. The spine of the Cathedral was yanked out
& its drooping body mouldered for years
While we asked each other what to do with it.
Now,
A kidney is juggled
Outside the bus interchange. A kissing
Couple in the newly opened H&M
On closer inspection, are
Actually snogging their tongues into
A knot so they don’t have to talk about
The future again.
People buying cigarettes ask
My mother, behind her counter, to reach for
The packet with the picture
Of the rotted toes, rather than the glaring blue eye.
& i get that. If you are not throwing a tantrum
In the main streets of everywhere, why not? Why not
Make yourself as loud as the fluttering entrails
Of your city will let slide?
GARY MCCORMICK from LOCAL RADIO
Once wrote poems with Sam Hunt,
But really who gives a holy rolling
Fuck if he still does. Now, in the year
Of our lord two thousand and eighteen
He watches Despicable
Me 3 with his children, i hand over
His Morton Estate sav, my automotive heart
Uses itself for a drum, & in this dried
Nosebleed of a weekday morning
You wonder why i will not
Leave the city,
This one,
Where i walk up my hill with
The French exchange student
Who wears a speedo to the beach
& does not understand me at all.
We watch helicopters scoop
Buckets of water from swimming
Pools to put out one of the many fires
Blooming on the shoulders of the hill where
My parents decided
I should live.
I Am Scared Everyone Will Die
o but the wonder of him. o but
the swollen mess
of a quarantine baby – i don’t
tell him about the dreams. every few years
i guess i know basically what my body does,
& then it spits out a blood clot,
strawberry-sized. blisters, curved
& yellow like half apricots, bloom on my
shoulders in sun. when they go,
they leave me freckles
(which sometimes, he
licks). when we do yoga, i can twist
my self in such a way that something opens &
i gust out a summer wind. we both laugh
at that. i feel
like a cherry blossom, or a stagnant pond;
a booger-caked page in a library book. bodies
can be
composted now, some places. or dusted
into harakeke caskets. mmm. we bring things up
like we’re daring one another to flinch. i
want somewhere to go, i think & do not
say. someplace to hold accountable
for holding your bones. so maybe
want is the wrong word – but in
fairness, for most
of our lives, it has been
the right one. want
to feel him swell, & then small, warm
beside me. want to
laugh with him in the sunlight of my
parents’ house, the online yoga instructor
& her dog. the twisting, the twisting. want
to see him stretch. see his eyes
close. see them
open, feel something
open. the truth is,
we could all be sick &
none of us know.
Cerys Fletcher (she/her) is 19 & rashy. She can be found & contacted on instagram (@cerys_is_tired). In ‘You Wonder Why I Will Not Leave The City’, the title and the phrase ‘automotive heart’ are quotes from Gary McCormick’s poem ‘Sunset & Hills, Sunset & Hills’.