Billy Clem
Interstices
To love makes one solitary, she thought.
—Virginia Woolf
The crescent moon lies on its back
tonight. Looks lazy
for the first time ever. Such comfort
ought to be an affront, really:
a student snap-chatting, a single piece of
clean toilet paper after great pain,
a sleeping security guard on a clear, windless
night. But, no. It’s
an infant’s legs held up while her aunt
slips on another dry diaper,
a quick check for freshness, some fast
love before returning to the adults.
A still, well-worn hammock, not waiting
for the burden of someone’s belly,
mind, or ass. Just the clean palm of the ill
man finally on white sheets, not
fighting yesterday, stocking tomorrow’s ammo.
Cupping only light.
Not a sickle. Or a reflection. Not even
bared teeth, ready. Just resting,
one leg over the other, head held firm,
worn knuckles interlaced. Preparing
for its own fullness, for all the eggs
to come, for you.
Billy Clem‘s poems and flash fiction have appeared in The New Verse News, Counterexample Poetics, Moon City Review, Elder Mountain, and in Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology. His academic work has appeared in MELUS, Asian American Poets, Asian American Short Story Writers, Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literature of the United States, LGBTQ America Today: An Encyclopedia, and Voces de America/Voices of America: Interviews with American Writers. He teaches writing, Multicultural Literatures, and Women’s and Gender studies outside Chicago.
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