Erin S. Taylor: Summer Bummer (Random Notes on the Black Swan Theory

Solo exhibition as Erin S. Taylor at Closing soon, Athens

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Like it or not, when in her uterus, you grew a little extra finger.
You never were too fond of it; not when you compared it to those extra two she had
poking out of her chest as you gnawed and chewed on them,
whenever you felt this other thing gnawing at you,
a discomfort you yet could not name but soon enough learned to call hunger.

You chewed and gnawed and they would stick up for you, pink and then deep purple
bruising to let out what only your mouth could suckle out of them
and suckle it did for hours on end, those two purple pinches
around which your tongue swirled and attached for survival,
coarse and warm and exhilarating, a panther’s kiss in the dark.

That was the deal in the early beginning and for a little while on,
after she gently guided your mouth towards the world for survival,
when your explorations were still allowed,
you saw in the swelling and shrinking of her purple peaks
a reasoning of your own downthere, a reasoning and a transfer,
adornment and adoration.

Years after, you brought your protrusion out into the world, head on
for it to feed and be fed upon, first coy then triumphant,
shoved into mouths and orifices, letting yourself be filled too;
joyfully, shamefully, wildly, pathetically
party to the world’s communion, ecstasy’s humble labourer, you.

And for a while it was ok, you and your gift spread open,
wide and eventually thin as slowly came the feel
- first on your skin and slowly to your marrow -
that all of what you thought you had, turns out, was not enough
the world will always hunger more!
And deep within its stomach now you were, if nothing else,
a little sore.

Maude Plume_