On the Motion of Animals by Camille Rankine

MARGINALIA • SKIP TO THE POEM

1.
Listen to what I’m trying to tell you, you say softly. Your mouth is on my inner thigh and I know you mean it. Your teeth are on my neck and I know you mean it. Your hands cradle my face and I know you mean it. Your arms enfold me when I feel unsafe and I know mean it. You will slay everyone who has ever hurt me and I know you mean it.

2.
We both wanted to be honest and now we are both in pain. Was it mercy or was it foolishness, I don’t know. Is it better to carry the weight of everything we’ve never given voice to but continues to make a home at the back of our minds. Let’s work this out—a promise and a threat, both.

3.
A languaged being can live and thrive between spaces but I still need words sometimes. I am here, you say, and what more do you need, and I’m not going to anywhere. Then you say: But—

4.
At that moment I know there’s a universe that has exploded behind a single word: but do my actions make you feel unloved but it’s nothing to overthink but it’s not going to mean anything if you don’t see what I see in you but you’ll just keep second-guessing whether you’re someone worth loving—

On the Motion of Animals
Camille Rankine

I am trying to tell you
something but my mouth
won’t move

I want to hold you
but it comes all wrong
I am marooned

in this body
with no gift
for puppetry

I want to
know you I think
I could

love you like you
probably should
be loved but my love

is a fish
in the wrong
kind of water

where I want
to hold you but
there’s someone else

in the room
the radiator’s screaming
and my arms won’t move

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This poem appeared in Incorrect Merciful Impulses by Camille Rankine, published by Copper Canyon Press, 2016. Shared here with profound gratitude.

Read more works by Camille Rankine • Find books by this poet • Or view my library 

Explore poems in pursuit of: the self • love • language • Or browse the index

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