Sophie Klahr
FIXATIVE
In an early scene, the Angel’s mother pushes him gently out the screen door, into the world.
A lawnmower’s deep whine circles the next yard over, and he can feels it vibrate in his bare feet, saying
Something is hurt. In the next scene, time has leapt: he is older, carrying a skateboard—the screen door
slams-leaving with her calling after him. And now, the Angel sends me a photograph of the contents
of a drawer in the nightstand beside the bed where he slept for awhile, in the house of a man whose
wife had left him. I imagine the hallways there—pimpled sheetrock, a nail left by a framed poster once
hung, then decided against. They drink and lift. They wear no masks. They share the occasional woman
despite the Angel knowing better. The nightstand contains: a handgun, three unopened condoms,
a single black spike heel, cheap reading glasses. It is something like a shadow box made
by Joseph Cornell: light magic set behind a pane—cast-offs, small cuts or gatherings of time assembled
into something like a life. When I catch the illusion, the Angel admits the staging--
Same thing, he laughs. The handgun’s grip is laid over the lime green of the condom wrappers,
the heel’s spike touches the handgun’s muzzle, and the pair of glasses have been placed neatly folded
below the arc of objects, as if everything in the drawer was on the mind of who wore the glasses.
As if that was all they could bear imagining.
A lawnmower’s deep whine circles the next yard over, and he can feels it vibrate in his bare feet, saying
Something is hurt. In the next scene, time has leapt: he is older, carrying a skateboard—the screen door
slams-leaving with her calling after him. And now, the Angel sends me a photograph of the contents
of a drawer in the nightstand beside the bed where he slept for awhile, in the house of a man whose
wife had left him. I imagine the hallways there—pimpled sheetrock, a nail left by a framed poster once
hung, then decided against. They drink and lift. They wear no masks. They share the occasional woman
despite the Angel knowing better. The nightstand contains: a handgun, three unopened condoms,
a single black spike heel, cheap reading glasses. It is something like a shadow box made
by Joseph Cornell: light magic set behind a pane—cast-offs, small cuts or gatherings of time assembled
into something like a life. When I catch the illusion, the Angel admits the staging--
Same thing, he laughs. The handgun’s grip is laid over the lime green of the condom wrappers,
the heel’s spike touches the handgun’s muzzle, and the pair of glasses have been placed neatly folded
below the arc of objects, as if everything in the drawer was on the mind of who wore the glasses.
As if that was all they could bear imagining.
FIRE SCRIPT
Sometimes when the Angel touches me, I can feel the unlived past rise, what would have happened
had I done the work to understand my veins. This life is still a catalogue of Yet. At some point,
most humans develop something called a “fire script”: in one, a person translates fire as a means
to light or feed; in one, a person falls in love with the blaze. I shied from the intravenous
only out of practicality, recalling the pallid frustration of phlebotomists I’d known when very young.
Plainly: this is why I chose to inhale my heroin. Sometimes when the Angel touches me, I feel
the untaken education—the choreography of tourniquets & sharps. In the unlived past, I fall in love
with the blaze. I burn my life down. I set the whole fucking thing on fire.
had I done the work to understand my veins. This life is still a catalogue of Yet. At some point,
most humans develop something called a “fire script”: in one, a person translates fire as a means
to light or feed; in one, a person falls in love with the blaze. I shied from the intravenous
only out of practicality, recalling the pallid frustration of phlebotomists I’d known when very young.
Plainly: this is why I chose to inhale my heroin. Sometimes when the Angel touches me, I feel
the untaken education—the choreography of tourniquets & sharps. In the unlived past, I fall in love
with the blaze. I burn my life down. I set the whole fucking thing on fire.
Sophie Klahr is the author of the poetry collections Two Open Doors in a Field (University of Nebraska Press) and Meet Me Here at Dawn (YesYes Books), and co-author of There is Only One Ghost in the World (Fiction Collective 2), winner of the 2022 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Contest. She teaches online poetry courses and offers a wide variety of literary services -- learn more at sophieklahr.com