Scientists Don’t Know Shit &
This Is Real Because We Feel It
Defying time and space, all things real according to scientists
we soar through the expanse comprised of moments, locations,
matter, and possibility Your left hand loosely positioned on my
right knee conducts the matter of me: pushing and pushing and
pulling and pulling and imagining and reimagining what the
future-that-doesn’t-exist might hold if only…
Tonight which is real according to the proof of your breath
entering my own, I hold you sweetly and also painfully Aware
of the hold impermanence has on all that matters Actual or not,
we feel it: that push and pull and imagining and reimagining
The animal soft of your bed guiding your left hand to the thick
of my darkness Right or not, we know it: time and space and all
the things we don’t pretend to understand were changed by
the reflection of possibility in your eyes Exist with me here
and now and if we never exist in that future, I still know that this
is real because we feel it Your left hand conducting the matter of
me made right in the animal soft of your bed, the darkness of
possibility, the validity of this moment, your eyes and time and
space And according to me scientists don’t know shit except how
to stretch a theory across the reality of feeling We feel it: the
possibility of all that matters or will matter This matter: me
holding you tonight And I am not a scientist so here I go knowing,
feeling, reeling, timing the space this moment will travel with me
Tonight, I am 63 years old again I am defying time I am taking
my last breath I am recounting all the moments that ever mattered
I am back in tonight I am holding you conducting me I am real
I am possibility I am matter I am defying space I am 63 I am 33
I am in the animal soft of your bed I am taking my last breath
I am defying all things scientists say are real I am breathing into
the animal soft of your possibility I am holding you conducting me
I am real
I am
May There Only Be Sky
after “Sonnet XI” -Pablo Neruda
Dropped into delusion
acutely aware of your creature absence
I strip the bedding, seeking proof
before I pace the streets
carrying your scent from my jowls
Around my ankles, chains of devotion
strike against themselves
marking each step
Hungry and feral I lunge at shadows
flinch at air
Sniffing for your afterglow
I cringe at my appetite
its pathetic need for proximity
Your laughter fills twilight
My own ears’ deception
bringing this tired heart to its knees
I turn for my den
that dreary place of vacancy
Maybe you too hungered through your day
for my skin in your mouth
my song in your ears
At this moment might you be retracing
each of my measured movements
longing for my hot mouth
the throbbing beat of my heart
slamming against the cage of your own?
Your animal rustle wakes me from slumber
and I find myself in your arms
that sturdy place I journeyed through night for
I sigh with relief at your presence
relaxing into your hold
My eyes shift from your hands to the ceiling
and find instead, there is only sky
Shuck It
after “Queer Miracle” - Tiana Clark
In Oregon they spread aggressively
repetitious vines blanketed
in brittle thorns
attaching themselves to
pelage, clothes, those getting too close
Fruits of misfortune
sprouting after life-altering loss
choosing to scatter bits of courage
like seedlings for hope:
blackberries blackberries blackberries.
I chose risk
to start over somewhere new
eventually, you
queer miracle
shucked from oyster
repeating in every color
each sound
endless mornings
the softness, newness
container of connection
a vessel-spilling-rainbows
painting over recall
what once was
stale greys
shallow yellows
in lustrous hues
Why mention rainbows again
if only for the sake of honoring
storms that came before?
Why mention your eyes
unless to say
I no longer quell my desire
to be seen in them?
Their reflection - that pearl,
iridescent
already shines back all rainbows.
xo
Golden Shovel after “Twenty-One Love Poems VIII” - Adrienne Rich
I am writing you a postcard: I
wish you were here! Scrawled in desire, in want.
I am recalling the ways we love: mouth to
mouth, eyes seeking confirmation. Each time you go
a piece left behind. My breath catching on
frequencies still mutating and from
somewhere your whisper reaches me. Here
is where I wish to be: with
you. So even without, I am. With. You.
How I wish you were here! Limbs fighting,
fingers asking, finally submitting to the
testaments found in temptation.
I am writing you a postcard; the only way I know to
tell you that to love you is to make
true a thousand dreams webbed of hunger. A
postcard to say, I would happily make a career
of offering myself to you, of
filling with pleasure the hollows of your pain.
What, of this Chaos, is Mine?
three quarters in palm
transfer
index to sleek:
C
/
3
mechanical whir of rotation
packaged disarray
tumbled
to floor
to fingers
to be opened
there is a beacon
within the babel
hard to claim
if not purchased
coins for the queer
the singular
buzzed and bouncing
wall to wall
there is fervor to be relished
in the in-between
the non-belonging
spaces where the discarded linger
awaiting endorsement
is synonymous
with disapproval
which looks
like denunciation
which feels
like freedom
which translates
to power
& so i buy it
the in-between
the non-belonging
spaces where the discarded linger
awaiting endorsement
i endorse the discarded the chaos what is mine take coins for the queer & relish in the fervor of what is mine what is now this power in being discarded
About the author:
Cee Chávez (they/them) is no longer interested in writing bios that reduce them to the identities they hold, their previous publications, their highest level of education, or the work they participate in for monetary compensation. The accolades they are proudest of exist in the love they have cultivated and are continuously surrounded by, which cannot be adequately conveyed in 100 words or less.
Photo by Robert Katzki on Unsplash
Isele Magazine 