Earrings (Yves Saint Laurent, Paris) by Tam(sin) Blaxter

Earrings (Yves Saint Laurent, Paris)

Tam(sin) Blaxter

Were I but glass / The muscles are each made up of lemon carpels (each sitting unpopped at the bottom of a water glass) / So we don’t need hypnotism—see how easily we’re washed into salt / The wings shrugged up / And we stand as if flown to the factory floor / Or are weighed stationary there—as isn’t it lead in these blue woodworm-tunnels on the back of the hand? / And why work the vomit of hydrogen to reach the silver moon that’s grey / Here’s the silver moon set / Here’s a metre of stars / And stars a crown two-metres in diametre / And stars a ring that won’t be resized / And stars are all paper / which can’t undergo fusion / which sit unignited in the sky like books or flushed chests or the body’s mass against the floor

Tam(sin) Blaxter was born in a terraced house on the crest of a hill from which balloons could be seen. They now live in Cambridge, which is woefully flat. She is an enby trans woman, a poet and a historical linguist—all of these things inform each other, more or less. They can be found at www.icge.co.uk or on twitter @what_really_no.

ISSUE NINETEEN: Stymy A Seller | next poem →