SHELBY HANDLER
Cakes Decorated While You Wait
The sign promises. While you wait
for anything you’re waiting for!
(ie. the messiah, the bus, the tea kettle,
your father to go into remission, your father’s rage
to go into remission, your mother to leave them both.)
If it all arrives, you’ll be party ready.
At least this waiting room is better
than the ones where nothing happens until your name is called.
Those ones take pictures of your bones
or steal blood and teeth
and make you foot the bill.
I’m here waiting to find out what happens to all the pulled teeth.
I’m hoping for an invitation to a dentist’s bedroom.
Ten bucks it’s like the Capuchin Crypt in there.
Jars of splintering molars on an altar,
strings of stinking pearls swinging in the doorway,
new arrivals warming under a pillow.
Imagine a thousand strangers smiling from corners of their mouths no one ever saw.
You might wait an eternity
for someone to see the darkest parts of you.
Why not do it at the Italian bakery?
You will need an extra-large raspberry-filled sheet cake to fit the words:
"Congratulations on looking directly at my brokenness and not running away."
Anyway, running is the worst waiting room of all.
Awful magazine selection.
No receptionist, savior or baker will ever chase you down.
It’s horrific how much time can be killed
to will a change. During sleep, the body will ache
like a green pear too slow to ripen.
It will stiffen like the tongue of an anxious envelope unopened.
It’s almost as bad as how long a mother can stand standing
in the kitchen while her husband yells from the couch.
There is a single moment when her sigh
goes stale, she hacks off the crust
of a whisper to her daughter, "Here, bring him this slice."
Corner piece. Where all the frosting meets. So sweet it’ll make you lose your teeth.
for anything you’re waiting for!
(ie. the messiah, the bus, the tea kettle,
your father to go into remission, your father’s rage
to go into remission, your mother to leave them both.)
If it all arrives, you’ll be party ready.
At least this waiting room is better
than the ones where nothing happens until your name is called.
Those ones take pictures of your bones
or steal blood and teeth
and make you foot the bill.
I’m here waiting to find out what happens to all the pulled teeth.
I’m hoping for an invitation to a dentist’s bedroom.
Ten bucks it’s like the Capuchin Crypt in there.
Jars of splintering molars on an altar,
strings of stinking pearls swinging in the doorway,
new arrivals warming under a pillow.
Imagine a thousand strangers smiling from corners of their mouths no one ever saw.
You might wait an eternity
for someone to see the darkest parts of you.
Why not do it at the Italian bakery?
You will need an extra-large raspberry-filled sheet cake to fit the words:
"Congratulations on looking directly at my brokenness and not running away."
Anyway, running is the worst waiting room of all.
Awful magazine selection.
No receptionist, savior or baker will ever chase you down.
It’s horrific how much time can be killed
to will a change. During sleep, the body will ache
like a green pear too slow to ripen.
It will stiffen like the tongue of an anxious envelope unopened.
It’s almost as bad as how long a mother can stand standing
in the kitchen while her husband yells from the couch.
There is a single moment when her sigh
goes stale, she hacks off the crust
of a whisper to her daughter, "Here, bring him this slice."
Corner piece. Where all the frosting meets. So sweet it’ll make you lose your teeth.
Shtetl Remedy
Did my ancestors hollow out the black radish
and spoon honey into the crater?
Did they sleep while it seeped out the other end?
This dark root steeping an entire night
through its moonflesh, for cough medicine. So strong
they say the stars got pickled in it by morning:
syruped, stinging gems lodged in the tea cup catch.
I don’t often thank the sick bodies
that brought me here. I have barely enough
time on this earth to think about their
wheezing beaks, their raw throats
peeking out from under thinning wool,
like moons waning in a depth of darkness
now almost extinct. A darkness
so dark no one would believe me. I almost
can’t bother. I’d have to hop a plane, a train,
row a wooden boat to find my ancestors’
darkness. If I walked miles through a forest
where hidden torahs rot in the soil
under my soft feet. If I stepped into the icy lake
at the edge of the pines, with all my furs
flung off at shore and sang to the coal radishes
bobbing out the pockets of my cotton dress.
I’d see it then. I’d feel my own
sick body, slick and strong and outliving
what chased us here.
I’d leave the water overcome with remedy:
hands can be thawed by digging out
pungent gifts from the endless
still-warm earth. Someone else will live
because I pulled a bulb of darkness
from the bigger darkness, because
I did each sweet day of my dying
as slow as honey poured in winter.
and spoon honey into the crater?
Did they sleep while it seeped out the other end?
This dark root steeping an entire night
through its moonflesh, for cough medicine. So strong
they say the stars got pickled in it by morning:
syruped, stinging gems lodged in the tea cup catch.
I don’t often thank the sick bodies
that brought me here. I have barely enough
time on this earth to think about their
wheezing beaks, their raw throats
peeking out from under thinning wool,
like moons waning in a depth of darkness
now almost extinct. A darkness
so dark no one would believe me. I almost
can’t bother. I’d have to hop a plane, a train,
row a wooden boat to find my ancestors’
darkness. If I walked miles through a forest
where hidden torahs rot in the soil
under my soft feet. If I stepped into the icy lake
at the edge of the pines, with all my furs
flung off at shore and sang to the coal radishes
bobbing out the pockets of my cotton dress.
I’d see it then. I’d feel my own
sick body, slick and strong and outliving
what chased us here.
I’d leave the water overcome with remedy:
hands can be thawed by digging out
pungent gifts from the endless
still-warm earth. Someone else will live
because I pulled a bulb of darkness
from the bigger darkness, because
I did each sweet day of my dying
as slow as honey poured in winter.
I Had a Dream She Woke Me
I had a dream she woke me by kissing me like a light bulb entering a socket. I was being suffocated by sun.
Or my best friend was finally making out with me. Either way: a fist of filament filling my mouth. Our tongues
wrestle in tungsten, nimble as wires. Incandescence is instant once contact is made. I can’t exhale unless I end it. Our blaze
grows strong enough to illuminate the space around our blue-hot bodies. It’s so bright – what time is it? Our lips make
a new land with a new clock. Our heat transfuses to invent electricity for the place we’ve made. In this house, the walls
are every lambent inch of her skin I long inspected, familiar and faraway. The hearth is filled with the kindling
I had cast towards her like a flare. Did she notice and put it here? The bulb shatters inside me and the real light
comes. Wetness. Blood, spit and other self-made deluges. We choose to become a river on fire and flood
the whole house in flame. Light doesn’t just reveal. It creates and destroys. I’ve been this river before. I’ve been an arsonist always,
sneaking fire-starters into slumber parties where the girls pretended to be boys. We’d writhe upon each other, the red tips
of matches meeting. First lesson is you find your wick by lighting it. Then, you must burn the house you’ve made in order to live
in another house, built long before you had hands enough to make a spark. Now, I’m plunged into that lonely house,
into a morning I don’t recognize. She’s already left the bed. The abandoned space is luminous, a clearing of forest
after a necessary burn. The bedside lamp got left on. Sun pours through the bulb. Light on light, looks like ash.
Or my best friend was finally making out with me. Either way: a fist of filament filling my mouth. Our tongues
wrestle in tungsten, nimble as wires. Incandescence is instant once contact is made. I can’t exhale unless I end it. Our blaze
grows strong enough to illuminate the space around our blue-hot bodies. It’s so bright – what time is it? Our lips make
a new land with a new clock. Our heat transfuses to invent electricity for the place we’ve made. In this house, the walls
are every lambent inch of her skin I long inspected, familiar and faraway. The hearth is filled with the kindling
I had cast towards her like a flare. Did she notice and put it here? The bulb shatters inside me and the real light
comes. Wetness. Blood, spit and other self-made deluges. We choose to become a river on fire and flood
the whole house in flame. Light doesn’t just reveal. It creates and destroys. I’ve been this river before. I’ve been an arsonist always,
sneaking fire-starters into slumber parties where the girls pretended to be boys. We’d writhe upon each other, the red tips
of matches meeting. First lesson is you find your wick by lighting it. Then, you must burn the house you’ve made in order to live
in another house, built long before you had hands enough to make a spark. Now, I’m plunged into that lonely house,
into a morning I don’t recognize. She’s already left the bed. The abandoned space is luminous, a clearing of forest
after a necessary burn. The bedside lamp got left on. Sun pours through the bulb. Light on light, looks like ash.
SHELBY HANDLER is a writer and organizer living on Duwamish territory/Seattle, WA. Their work can be found in Gigantic Sequins, Mount Analogue Press, SHIFT Magazine and "We Will Be Shelter: Poems for Survival" (Write Bloody 2014). They are a founding member of the Jewish Voice for Peace Artists and Cultural Workers Council. Follow them @shelbeleh.