Ars/Ours: A Question

By NICELLE DAVIS

Trash Mask

Los Angeles, CA

There is comfort in a lack of context, dishes on the floor, jewelry on a peg board, grand piano next to an abandoned plastic phlebotomy practice arm. All the parts of the world shuffled and randomly dealt amongst rooms. A sort of magic trick, skinned in dust, connecting all things to a singular body—the auction house. I remember finding a large bowl of teeth.

25 cents a tooth then. Now it will cost you $200 for a dozen on Etsy. I remember, there were so many molars, an endless promise for more. It was the 80s—my belief in the Easter Bunny falling, but the thrill at mortality peaking. I took a deep breath and plunged my five-year-old hand into the bowl. My body dissolving inside a thousand fragmented mouths.

I flipped the bowl when a voice behind me asked, what does it feel like? The teeth scattered across the floor, escaping beneath China hutches and clothing racks, some landing in the toe caves of used shoes.  Stranger and I fell to the ground quick as apples—trying to catch incisors before they entirely vanished. We didn’t want to get caught, but caught doing what? Asking a question?  

Trash Woman

 

Nicelle Davis is a California poet, collaborator, and performance artist who walks the desert with her son J.J. in search of owl pellets and rattlesnake skins. Her poetry collections include The Walled Wife (Red Hen Press, 2016), In the Circus of You (Rose Metal Press, 2015), Becoming Judas (Red Hen Press, 2013), and Circe (Lowbrow Press, 2011). Her poetry film collaborations with Cheryl Gross have been shown across the world. She has taught poetry at Youth for Positive Change, an organization that promotes success for youth in secondary schools, MHA, Volunteers of America in their Homeless Youth Center, and with Red Hens WITS program. She is the creator of The Poetry Circus and collaborator on the Nevermore Poetry Festival. She currently teaches at Knight High School and with the Migrant Education Program. 

Photos by Nicelle Davis (“Trash Mask” by Nicelle Davis) and Jasson Hughes (“20 foot trash woman” by Nicelle Davis).

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Ars/Ours: A Question

Related Posts

Dispatch: Two Poems

SHANLEY POOLE
I’m asking for a new geography, / something beyond the spiritual. // Tell me again, about that first / drive up Appalachian slopes // how you knew on sight these hills / could be home. I want // this effervescent temporary, here / with the bob-tailed cat // and a hundred hornet nests.

Fathom

SARA RYAN
When the whales wash up on shore, my friend grieves. I feel it too, but it feels further away. Deep in me, treading water, legs furiously churning under the surface. The first whale washes up on the oceanfront, just off the boardwalk. People drive out to stare at it. Its dark wet form deflates into the sand.

dispatch from lebanon, 2023

GHINWA JAWHARI
my dear: after the noise & flash of beirut, at last we are collecting ourselves for a short while in the mountains: the district of mtein, where my partner’s grandparents have built an enormous, open home meant for hosting grandchildren.