The Couple

By KC TROMMER

Louise Bourgeois, MASS MoCA

Inside the bounded mercury,
we keep going. All circuits that close
make serpents of us, constrict
and envelop every tender corner until
         only a small portion
is distinct, our feet dangling like the end of a
sentence. We suspend ourselves
in a room full of light but take none in.

Though we might call it love,
         it’s not. It’s only the old narratives
winding through us, moving their casings
over us until we are a closed circuit of knowing.

What I want more than company
is air. Well, perhaps to be held lightly,
         the faint feeling of you at my waist
as I turn open. But first, the task is to
command the molecules to take in more,
to occupy the sealed
space. There is no straight line to this
         evolution, no greater alchemy
         than adding oxygen, no end

KC Trommer is the author of the debut poetry collection We Call Them Beautiful and the chapbook The Hasp Tongue. She is the founder of the collaborative audio project QUEENSBOUND and assistant director of communications at NYU Gallatin. She lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, with her son.

[Purchase Issue 20 here.]