Alix Perry

Alix Perry is a trans writer from the Pacific Northwest. Their work has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and can be found in beestung, The Shore, Rejection Letters, and elsewhere. Their chapbook, Tomatoes Beverly, was just released by Querencia Press. More at alixperrywriting.com.

Easy read of the poems in the images above:

Clockface Absent

Morning falls open upon my face

parading its practiced indifference.

Through the window, winter’s timid

sky dressed in a lavender sheet,

such an elegant ghost. Dream still

an intricate threading through

my once-long hair. Cold cheeks

between warm palms. Menthol

chapstick on skin like green and

red string lights painting placid

puddles all down the block.

Grammar of certainty pillowed

in a laugh, in a shared pocket,

oozing even from gunk of underfoot

leaves. Everywhere a soft offering.

In sleeping, the subconscious gives

& in waking, the subconscious takes

& in neither is there choice.

I decloak from sheets, hug shoulders

smooth, taste pith-bitter spit. Past bare

trees and potholed streets, the river

below in hiding. A wary affinity

I find with this fogbank, the one who

swallows but cannot eat, who hushes

but cannot speak. I may be more

the wet of lungs & throat & mouth

than a husk built on memory or

marrow. I may be more the fear of

dark than what a flashlight’s beam

would find. I may be most the

cherished clockface, absent hands

and numbers, gears smashed out the

back. An accordion rift sighing open.

Time isn’t mechanical revolutions

or even orbit of planets. Time is lips

on a frosted window, both finding

their mark and leaving it. To live

is to learn from the eager flow

of heat. To live is to learn the body

bears its tenuousness in belief.

These words are old yet happening

all around us. Mine may someday

prove themselves a stormcloud so full—

Under My Eyes

Maybe it is not

too simple

to say I crawl

to begin. Loose

braid of desire,

chewing at split

ends. C showed

me how to

rub my closed

eyes until I see

what I need

to see: my

mummified body,

your petrified

soul. A purple-necked

promise to

keep the ellipses

company

with words

that would always

follow. Even when

tulips bloom

from the pockets

of the wrong

people, and they

set their teeth

like retaining walls,

and the plastic

gargoyle lies

on its side

in the walkway, well,

I draw mascara

stars under my eyes

because circles

are clichéd,

and sooner or

later I fall

asleep in the shape

of a silence.

Ways to Keep Warm

This blushing edge

of October, this

unspooling proximity.

Of soil’s pursed lips.

Echo, chalky brights

behind my eyes, tints

arrhythmic in my

wrists. Charisma’s

new refusal to cross

the bridge of my nose,

now hunkers down in

my right dimple. Like

metal or mountain,

I am mutant under

the right conditions:

temperature, pressure,

the shadow of

a furrowed sky.

Model home greens

and browns under my

nails, drywall crumbled

in my palms. I entrust

my speech to these

teething clouds as

I sit in their maw,

our breath churning

orchestral— and so much

earlier these evenings.

Welcome the canny

damnation, the incessant

argument, the spilled

drink even when

it stains. Our gossip,

a blanket. Vulgarity,

a cloak. The overripe

rattle rests ready in

an axial hand. Saying

soon we will all be

known by our underbellies.

This traipsing lace,

that tentative serenity.