One Country

Abstract

One Country Rickey Laurentiis (bio) I hate this body. I hate its breath. I want to be released from it. I want its impulses stunned to lead. Let it. Let the whole pageant end. If my body had a river in it I would drain it. If by the river was a city, let a storm shock and drown it. If in the city was a boy made sick from his body, the freak passions of it, let him come out—his brown skin lifting as a shell. Let it. Let all his limbs pop and unhinge. First his penis, its quick flight, as if a comet. The eight fingers next, then thumbs, then tongue, till every star is on the floor, dismissed, each pointing in its own direction, each another door to the one country where his body is loved and made for. [End Page 997] Rickey Laurentiis Rickey Laurentiis, a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, is studying for the MFA in creative writing at Washington University in St. Louis. His poems have appeared in jubilat, Indiana Review, Tidal Basin Review, and many other journals. Copyright © 2011 The Johns Hopkins University Press