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In a Kingdom of Little Gusts and I Want Out by Christopher Citro

By T.

22 January 2025

692

In a Kingdom of Little Gusts and I Want Out
Christopher Citro

Our cat leapt upon the young garter snake.
I had to pick up a brick to crush what would
not die. A perfectly shaped head with eyes,
crisp against a plantain leaf, slowly moving
from side to side, with more apparent grace
and beauty than I have ever managed, even
when I was young and filled with baby deer.
The next thing I saw was me pushing down
the brick. I used a rake to lift the green string
into the wild mint growing beside the patio.
I’m telling you this because later the stars
shone in great profusion, and I could feel —
as I can the spine down my back — the cold
expanse of nothing between each of those
specks. Silly lights. This morning I thwack
a spider on the ceiling. It falls behind a print
of a Mayan king lifting the god of lightning.
I crush the spider and say to you, It must be
autumn because now I kill one or two things
every day. And you say to me nothing.
You put down your yam, walk to me,
and lift your arms around these shoulders
shaking like the fierce heart of a rabbit.

MARGINALIA

1.
There was a time when I couldn’t kill anything. Not even the cockroach that scattered across the kitchen floor when I turned on the lights. My sister used to laughed at me about all this. You’re too soft for this world, she said.

2.
Last night the sky was so clear I thought I could see past the edges of myself. Stars everywhere, tiny and endless. How absurd, that we hold our bodies together every day under such impossible distances.

3.
Maybe my sister was right. Maybe I’ve been learning, season by season, what it means to survive here.

4.
When you hold me—arms around my shaking—I remember what bodies are for. The way you don’t ask me to explain the trembling. The way you know that some days I am the rabbit heart and some days I am the brick.

5.
Do you think we become more or less ourselves when we do what we must to keep living?

6.
Sometimes the most loving thing is to lift the weight and bring it down.

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This poem appeared in Fugue, Issue 64, October 2023.

DESCRIPTION

“Established in 1990 at the University of Idaho, Fugue publishes poetry, fiction, essays, hybrid work, and visual art from established and emerging writers and artists. Fugue is managed and edited entirely by University of Idaho graduate students, with help from graduate and undergraduate readers. We take pride in the work we print, writers we publish, and the presentation of each issue.” (Source)

ABOUT CHRISTOPHER CITRO

Christopher Citro is the author of two full-length poetry books: If We Had a Lemon We’d Throw It and Call That the Sun (Elixir Press, 2021), winner of the 2019 Antivenom Poetry Award, and The Maintenance of the Shimmy-Shammy (Steel Toe Books, 2015). In 2025 he’ll have two collaborative poetry chapbooks published: The Box We Put the World in to Keep a Corner From Shattering (Aureole Press), co-written with Steve Castro and Dustin Pearson, and I Wear a Top Hat When I Go Into the… (more)