the
gospel
of
breaking
the
gospel
of
breaking
JILLIAN CHRISTMAS
THE GOSPEL OF BREAKING
Copyright © 2020 by Jillian Christmas
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any part by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical—without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in the case of photocopying in Canada, a licence from Access Copyright.
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The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council for its publishing program, and the Government of Canada, and the Government of British Columbia (through the Book Publishing Tax Credit Program), for its publishing activities.
Arsenal Pulp Press acknowledges the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, custodians of the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories where our office is located. We pay respect to their histories, traditions, and continuous living cultures and commit to accountability, respectful relations, and friendship.
Cover illustration: empathy by Demontier
Front cover design by Oliver McPartlin
Text and back cover design by Jazmin Welch
Edited by Amber Dawn
Copy edited by Shirarose Wilensky
Printed and bound in Canada
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication:
Title: The gospel of breaking / Jillian Christmas.
Names: Christmas, Jillian, 1983– author.
Description: Poems.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190217529 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190217537 |
ISBN 9781551527970 (softcover) | ISBN 9781551527987 (HTML)
Classification: LCC PS8605.H752 G67 2020 | DDC C811/.6—dc23
for my grandmothers
Sylvia, Doris,
and the lineage of tornado-spined women
who keep wind in my lungs
and a fire burning under my feet
contents
a home I can only leave once
(from the ground, up)
casting
housewarming
I miss you much
who’s the malcontent now?
falling in love in love
(and you say you want to sit at her table?)
the gospel of breaking
do not feed
feather runaway takeoff
one of us swallows a brick of cement again or: for the lover and the drowned tongue
clean up in aisle 9
hard to tell if this is just the internet, or another dream where I am in front of the class in only my dirty underwear
(each of the spirits, each of them come)
talking with ancestors after the show freedom singer 02-02-18
soft-bellied beast
I turned around and you were gone
poet searching mourning
butterfly in a boneyard
(no gift like a loosened fist)
sidecar
joker
alphabet soup
seconds
it’s only a good ride if you can choose to get off or: to the people who would call robin williams a coward
they said we wouldn’t need these life jackets on dry land
(sugar plum)
black feminist
and still you cannot touch it
in my mind there is a place where we are both whole
what forgetfulness is for
no one of us alone
will you write it?
i had to choose
(the woman is made of eyes and she got a tornado running up her spine)
things I can do
northern light
monday morning made delicious
but have you tried
what’s been keeping you up at night
indigo medicine
every passing second is another ending
the bike poem
(bright embroidered tablecloth, cutlass, mirror)
reasons to burn
just how some folks learn the blues
honey
confession
untitled
acknowledgments
a home I can only leave once
tell mewhat is a body
of thoughtof workpolitic
practicehow many vessels
gather together around one soul
and what is eachholding
and howwill we know them
to call themby their names
if I openthe skin of myself
an invitationyou may wonder
if this waterever be made land
you may desireto question
if there is containerenough
for both of us
saviour enoughfor any
but what is a bodyof pleasure
collective knowledgedelight
in motionhow will we know it
unless we go searchingthrough
the roughness of being alive
and where do we go to find it
at restresistancebreaking
how far will I travel
which machinecan carry
bones through time
and river blood across
continentsbeneath seas and
what is a bodywith disease
and who is familyenough
to hold itheal it
are you onedear readera body
that wouldgather
next to mineerase the line
for a moment
so that urgent truthcan be born
on new lipscould you learn
a body imperfectand gorgeous
as this
comecloser dear heart
I want to knowyour rhythm
and you mine
(from the ground, up)
A non-exhaustive list of things growing in mommy’s rainforest garden
plantain
julie mango
sweet lemon/ orange hybrid
cashew
avocado
cocoa
pomerac
regular island orange
breadnut
red cherry
white cherry
bayleaf
fig
banana
one sweet plump strange girl learning to tend herself
casting
I speak things into being
if I do not open my mouth
that’s the kind of witch I am
it will not bond
conjurer
no matter how perfect the blessing
careful when I spell your name
with my own blood on my tongue
I will not say it unless I believe
I don’t dare whisper a curse
it’s real
this backward barking drum
this charming trick
it is a warning
where I give you my voice
and it is a metronome
the same moment
this is a wicked wisdom
the breath leaves your lung
laying teeth at your boot
making ritual
unfurling dirge themes
of hymns we didn’t sing
when the magic stopped working
when the magic stopped working
these hymns w
e didn’t sing
unfurling dirge themes
making ritual
laying teeth at your boot
the breath leaves your lung
this is a wicked wisdom
the same moment
and it is a metronome
where I give you my voice
it is a warning
this backward barking drum
it’s real
I don’t dare whisper a curse
I will not say it unless I believe
with my own blood on my tongue
careful when I spell your name
no matter how perfect the blessing
conjurer
it will not bond
that’s the kind of witch I am
if I do not open my mouth
I speak things into being
housewarming
tonightwebeloved misfits had a fire
we didn’t mean to
but the candles met our shrine of love letters
with suchcommitment
that we had to stand back
and watch
once the flames were out
all we could think about
was making new letters
I miss you much
I miss youlike dark
and icy waters miss the
warmth of sun’s sweet
kisses
or lustfor the hard
handof wind’s
fleeting embracesI
miss youlike a
hungry storm
wet and urgent carving
torrents through rough
and choppy placesI
miss you deepand
aching
longand heavy and
though you may not
heed thistruth is by
the time you read this
I will miss youmore
alreadymy room is
hotthe air hangs
dampand heady and
I miss you
I am missing you in
placeswhereother
lovers’ hands become
unsteadyat the
mention of our skin
where others’ sin is
weak and thin and
other fingers dare not
dream to touch come
back to me tonight
my love I promise
I am readyand I
miss you muchmy
loveMY GOD
I miss you much
who’s the malcontent now?
the most perverse indulgence I allow
of my own selfis not the carnal indiscretion
of this bodybut the clever compromises of its heart
Loveshe is a wicked temptress
to embrace her is a lifelong sentence
to evade heris a lonesome art
who of usis brave enough to wade
upon this sinking sand with hope in hand
when all semblance of reason packs its baggage
to departto tame a craft so cunning
that the doing wrenches breastfrom bone
mind from matterstrength from stone
and scatters them apart
falling in love in love
Once while in são miguel, I swam in a tiny ocean inside of the Ocean. It was a breakwater that created a pool, separating this little sea from its extended family—only by a circling wall of rocks that opened briefly on one end to let the water flow in and out. The ocean water there was so salty that I bounced around and floated with ease. For every moment I could spare in that day I flung my arms out in front, then back behind me, moving acrobatically through my private deep. The day was cool and the shallow bits of water warmed my skin. I wanted to stay forever in the double boiler, but eventually I returned to the cobbled roads.
Thinking back on it now, it is the only way I know to describe the feeling of falling in love while in love. I cannot say who is the big sea and who the small. The water ebbs and flows like lovers tend to do, changing shape and warmth, pulling me gently toward and away. The waves of one did not fight the other but fed each other, became part of each other. Though unique, each played a role in lifting me up. I suppose you could keep them apart—if you wanted to. I suppose you could have one without the other, call a pool a pool and leave it at that. But there is also, and especially, something beautiful in holding two blue seas in your glittering palms, and calling them both home.
(and you say you want to sit at her table?)
I wake early to cook fish broth for mommybut she is already working all the hard vegetables peeled and soaking in the sinkshe will not let me put my hands in her pothas no need for me to chop tomatoes today she has strength enough to stand and she plans to use it today is no chile day to cookso I listen mommy tells me about broth and how to boil itfirst the bush of green onionthen whiteeach vegetable in its time
when the pot calls for tomatowe find them soft and oozing in the fridgemommy says that there is still useeven for soft vegetables but fearing that all the good has gone from themI toss the bunch in the bin and replace them with the fresh fruit bought this weekthe business of cooking begins to loosen mommy’s tongue and soon I am receiving more than just lessons on good food
mommy is worried about my shapemore round peachthan stalk she says that chicken has made me fatand fat will make me oldtoo quick
after the first telling I thank mommy for the lessonon secondI protestI am fine just as I am (though I do not mention how long it has taken me
to believe thisand in her presence I wonder if I still do)on third tellingI can feel the dull of her blade separating one layer of skin from the next
until my whole body feels raw and open when fourth telling comes I am weeping a tender fruit ready to burst and bleed at the lightest touch
mommy finds this curious her face filling with surprise mommy knows the use of every growing thing on this island she knows at least two good reasons for every plant in her yard but she has no idea what to do with the wilting girl in her kitchen the pooling woman now on her front porch now bruising in her guestbed
the gospel of breaking
dear god
is it wrong that so long after
our separation
I still see your face
the holy water between my legs
when she touches me
the wet in her eyeshead pressed back
her sinner mouthtoo full of heaven
this bruised-knee city
springing with all the wrong kinds of love
and all the best company to enjoy it in
I was birthed into a church too comfortable
with a god who would make closets into coffins
but I have been born again
into the religion of lost souls
baptized under bourbon-kissed streetlight
anointed in smoke plumes
there is laughter and blood in my cheek
and more than enough of it to feed the masses
today
I see you in every busted lip
and backroom hand job
my god who has been so quiet
this must be your work
as baffling as all of your
other mercies
do not feed
this world wants me angry all the time
thick tongued
frothing emotions too big to be trusted
wants me running
out of the house in my nightgown
ashy knees making love to the concrete
howling and wailing
may as well be admitting
the animal they already think I am
this world thinks me sweeter with my jaw
clenched shut
too-ripe throatsplitting its seams
it wants me begging
and always saying thank you
when I’ve had
enough
wants me checking the mirror for new wounds
calling all of my people to see if they are
s t i l l b r e a t h i n g
this world wants to scrape the bottom of me
wants to line its garbage cans
with the things that I callholy
I keep trying to finish poems about black joy
I keep trying to plant an herb garden
worthy of attention
I might make this world love me
or leave mealone to love myself
I keep patting down a body I think is mine
to prove that this fear is not the only thing
left standing in the room
still this world keeps me busy wrapping bandages
I go up the mountain
I go to the vigil
I cook good food
I love hard as I know how
I keep learning to love better
and faster than a screaming bullet
I write
I don’t sleep
I cry ’til I forget the joke
come morning
this world tears strips clean off me
complains about the toughness of the meat
the wild flare of my nostrils
circles a crooked tooth in the photographs
asks why I look so mean
feather runaway takeoff
Imagine me a hallowed skin
glassy gaze fixed from the wall across the room
strange awkward prize expression
all the wet life sucked out
imagine fumbling to articulate the heartbeat of a crow
when you’ve already captured my meaning
words have no place in a cage can’t help nothing at all
may as well lay me on the windowsill
a blistering pie
a promise not to jump
I am watching you build a nest
when you lift my legs pluck
soft feathers from your cheek
to lay beneath my furrowed toes
I am trying to resist the rising swaddle of your voice
my heavy-headed swan-dive surrender
this fear of flight caught in my caw
blocking my ravening howl
this hovering ghost awakenedbefore you go