Alix Perry

To Say Something of Weightlessness

Milk carpet chair green bean ice cream
cake chocolate burp pencil hand breath 

balloon fish tank water spit puddle hair—
We sort the world into solid liquid gas, 

array of eight-year-olds on the rug, cruddy
shoes crossed beneath us, picking and 

peeling rubber back from separating soles.
One of us pointing at the light above. Gas? 

Not quite. A new category on the board,
unnamed. These mornings, I sit on your 

chest and watch your pupils shrink as
I shift to let our stale dawn past. Window 

always open for your five-blanket sleeps,
breeze sighing life into a neighbor’s chimes. 

Sparrows’ trill adding to our adornment.
At least someone’s grateful for the overgrown 

garden, proof in their salmonberry-trained
beaks, sidewalk shit stains full of seeds. 

Though I have yet to check the blue for
warning wisps, I have heard word of rains 

on their way. What is any storm but a gloss
upon your cheek, perhaps an invitation 

to fingerpaint. Remembering the comfort
of smooth pigment on skin. Field of tulips, 

pit of snakes, oblong pumpkin. How many
of these still in my parents’ closet? I spell out 

a word on your forearm, atop the eroding ink.
The slight bump from the laser’s labor, 

white blood cells mopping up permanence.
It’s all relative. To linger, to stay. I shift right, 

intercepting insubstance, and your
pupils grow again. Terms and concepts have 

their purpose, though here it seems they hold
few truths. How little I grasp of these nothing 

somethings that pass between us, how much
I feel their potency in the heat of my face.

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Alix Perry (they/them) 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 B’K, Rejection Letters and elsewhere. Their chapbook, Tomatoes Beverly, is forthcoming with Querencia Press. More at alixperrywriting.com.