Loisa Fenichell
June blues
I did mostly everything when I was gifted into boredom –
traversed Coney Island, walking along its vertebra
boardwalks like a dizzied fox, the upstairs sky splintering
like a fractured bone by pickings of clouds. The sky
didn’t care about me. It couldn’t. In those days, there
were so many poets writing about bones, ghosts, and wind.
Oh, god. Was I one of them? Everything I saw
resembled some stretch of a blemished hand’s
covering of skin. This was not unusual. Thing is, I wanted
to be happier. It was difficult to believe, because I’d spent
so long underneath craven shade like a rooster. But I did.
I mean, really – what was happiness on about, anyway?
The pink-covered prized book of a loved one. Waking up
one day, in June, and looking out the window to wonder
at the yonder tree finally growing its green plants and flowers
red as bibles, or offensively vivid font colors, or, even more
obvious, menstrual cycles, and on. Where was I going?
I was taking the A train, knowing I could so easily stick
out my tongue and drag it across the orange seats. Lick up
the remnants of people’s – what? Salty? – imprints. Knowing,
too, that I would never. When at bars, and drinkers
told me they were surgeons, I couldn’t help but ask them,
hey, what’s wrong with me? What was wrong? Deer were still
roaming, at the very least. But then – they were getting hit by cars,
too. Monarch butterflies were still hovering like the sounds
of whistles above the sidewalks. On a date, a man said, yeah,
sure, I believe in global warming, but just because of the statistics.
Two days ago, the sky had been hazy and orange as a clementine.
A spare toothbrush sat on my desk, unused for months.
The problem was I would have given it to anybody,
to anybody at all who had the potential to adore me.
traversed Coney Island, walking along its vertebra
boardwalks like a dizzied fox, the upstairs sky splintering
like a fractured bone by pickings of clouds. The sky
didn’t care about me. It couldn’t. In those days, there
were so many poets writing about bones, ghosts, and wind.
Oh, god. Was I one of them? Everything I saw
resembled some stretch of a blemished hand’s
covering of skin. This was not unusual. Thing is, I wanted
to be happier. It was difficult to believe, because I’d spent
so long underneath craven shade like a rooster. But I did.
I mean, really – what was happiness on about, anyway?
The pink-covered prized book of a loved one. Waking up
one day, in June, and looking out the window to wonder
at the yonder tree finally growing its green plants and flowers
red as bibles, or offensively vivid font colors, or, even more
obvious, menstrual cycles, and on. Where was I going?
I was taking the A train, knowing I could so easily stick
out my tongue and drag it across the orange seats. Lick up
the remnants of people’s – what? Salty? – imprints. Knowing,
too, that I would never. When at bars, and drinkers
told me they were surgeons, I couldn’t help but ask them,
hey, what’s wrong with me? What was wrong? Deer were still
roaming, at the very least. But then – they were getting hit by cars,
too. Monarch butterflies were still hovering like the sounds
of whistles above the sidewalks. On a date, a man said, yeah,
sure, I believe in global warming, but just because of the statistics.
Two days ago, the sky had been hazy and orange as a clementine.
A spare toothbrush sat on my desk, unused for months.
The problem was I would have given it to anybody,
to anybody at all who had the potential to adore me.
The self is that other in the mirror – there you are!
So I said to her – I did! Look – there
you are with your blankest bits
of brain. You are wearing your bluest
dress. It is blue as that sliver
of horizon witnessed through
the window of a plane. There was a time –
you were walking outside
of an aquarium – when bird shit fell
onto the dress’ shoulder. Once, you
spoke with a woman about a carousel.
The carousel only revealed itself
to its neon green field at noon. You
did not enjoy being with this woman.
You’ve never enjoyed being with
a woman. Still, it’s true! You’re a woman
in love. Somewhere in the future,
you will find yourself your field!
It will be full of dusk. Some thorns.
In your past field a boy held
your legs apart like a riddle. We
don’t talk about that. Or that
when the future is unknown, you hate
everybody. You peer into
disappointment as though it were
a vase on your nightstand. The vase
is a plastic cup that reads
“Oakland Athletics.” Oakland
is in California. You are in New York.
The cup is full of tangled flowers.
The flowers have names. You forgot
them just as soon as you bought them.
This is why they are now dead. You used
to be so good with simile! Your smile,
with its proclivity to present itself simply
as a cornfield. You spent some time
in Ohio. You were unhappy with
its cornfields spread out like discarded gum.
You liked to chew spearmint, you did,
those days when you chewed so little else.
Your doctor expressed concern.
Your friend found the hunger natural.
A boy was found in your bed while
your boyfriend had gone to Ecuador.
So began the proclivity, too, towards
cheating. Today, for the first time, you
wanted to tear the legs of a woman.
The woman was not you. You are alone
for the seventieth night in a row. You want
yourself butchered and hanging from
a thread. God. I said all that! I said all this
and more. And that this blankness might fill
with an image. The image is a single gray
rock jutting from a blue ocean. There
is only one word to describe the sky – marvel.
you are with your blankest bits
of brain. You are wearing your bluest
dress. It is blue as that sliver
of horizon witnessed through
the window of a plane. There was a time –
you were walking outside
of an aquarium – when bird shit fell
onto the dress’ shoulder. Once, you
spoke with a woman about a carousel.
The carousel only revealed itself
to its neon green field at noon. You
did not enjoy being with this woman.
You’ve never enjoyed being with
a woman. Still, it’s true! You’re a woman
in love. Somewhere in the future,
you will find yourself your field!
It will be full of dusk. Some thorns.
In your past field a boy held
your legs apart like a riddle. We
don’t talk about that. Or that
when the future is unknown, you hate
everybody. You peer into
disappointment as though it were
a vase on your nightstand. The vase
is a plastic cup that reads
“Oakland Athletics.” Oakland
is in California. You are in New York.
The cup is full of tangled flowers.
The flowers have names. You forgot
them just as soon as you bought them.
This is why they are now dead. You used
to be so good with simile! Your smile,
with its proclivity to present itself simply
as a cornfield. You spent some time
in Ohio. You were unhappy with
its cornfields spread out like discarded gum.
You liked to chew spearmint, you did,
those days when you chewed so little else.
Your doctor expressed concern.
Your friend found the hunger natural.
A boy was found in your bed while
your boyfriend had gone to Ecuador.
So began the proclivity, too, towards
cheating. Today, for the first time, you
wanted to tear the legs of a woman.
The woman was not you. You are alone
for the seventieth night in a row. You want
yourself butchered and hanging from
a thread. God. I said all that! I said all this
and more. And that this blankness might fill
with an image. The image is a single gray
rock jutting from a blue ocean. There
is only one word to describe the sky – marvel.
Sonnet for a particular kind of nausea
I adore gray wind, I say, hoping it’s
something we might be able to agree
on. Acidity falls on my tongue like
a pale rain. Counting syllables of his
name – two – makes him more human to all the
flowers just beginning to show off – this
is in spring and, like all springs, scrolling through
feeds, there are so many babies born – these
infants entering the world for the first
time. In his room, a single striped bee, some drugs.
I am splayed out on my back like a sort
of televised roach. On the phone, I hear
somebody say, well, it must have happened –
it’s knocking against the surface of your voice.
something we might be able to agree
on. Acidity falls on my tongue like
a pale rain. Counting syllables of his
name – two – makes him more human to all the
flowers just beginning to show off – this
is in spring and, like all springs, scrolling through
feeds, there are so many babies born – these
infants entering the world for the first
time. In his room, a single striped bee, some drugs.
I am splayed out on my back like a sort
of televised roach. On the phone, I hear
somebody say, well, it must have happened –
it’s knocking against the surface of your voice.
Loisa Fenichell’s work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets, and has been featured or is forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, Washington Square Review, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, all these urban fields, was published by nothing to say press and her collection, Wandering in all directions of this earth, which was a Tupelo Press Berkshire Prize finalist in 2021 and 2022, was the winner of the 2022 Ghost Peach Press Prize, selected by Yale Younger Poets Prize winner Eduardo C. Corral, and published by Ghost Peach Press. She is the winner of the 2021 Bat City Review Editors' Prize, has been a finalist for Narrative Magazine’s 2021 30 Below contest, a runner-up for Tupelo Quarterly's Tupelo Poetry Prize, and a finalist for the Dorianne Laux / Joe Millar prize. She has received support from Bread Loaf Writers’ Workshop and Community of Writers and holds an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University.