Supplementary Performances in the Snow

by Rajnesh Chakrapani
Issue 1: Grotesque

Necessary Pleasures by Vanesa Gingold

I’m not sure who I invited into my bedroom
          I reached for twigs and got pubic hair
Scratched someone’s navel to
          blot out the earth’s backside
The desire to let my eyes
          linger over things
Found an imprecision in conversation confused as lust

I don’t really touch people
          it’s that simple
To say I love you
          brought in a scent
A contest between the availability of strangers
          and sending our bodies to paleness
A moment opened
           like pages, smiled
Went out in the evening to unhurt
          my feelings
With a distasteful mouth
           like shoes from boxes
Someone told me the streets
           are not for openness

I went about poorly turned on
           slept on the sidewalk and washed my thoughts
Clutched a lemon of night time
           A syringe of music in the
                       number of my remaining heartbeats

If I could peel my eyes or the light from my parenthesis
                                       elsewhere a hiss