Taking Touches from a Toy

Abstract

Taking Touches from a Toy Zach Linge (bio) I imagine my boyfriend as a toymade of foam and pliable wire:one foot tall, his sleeves paintedblue, his kneeless legs a Crayolagold. I freight him in a backpackto a dell. He bends easily thereand everywhere, into whatevershape I twist him, but lately hebristles into fractals of cracksin his aged, dried polyurethane.His manila honeycomb insidespeek through the big fissures.The holy guts look like lungs.It seems as though he breathesevery time I turn him. We saynothing, lying, we laugh at ourlimbs. I float him in a puddle,throw bit-off stems of orchidsabout his head, then he shareshis feelings, foam boots, hands.He speaks. Fatty tissue forms overgaps in crested ducks’ skulls, he says,and so the feathers stand up straight.I am not like them. I nod, seldomunderstand, and gather daisiesand mud cake. Home, I bathehim slowly with a toothbrush.I suspect roots remain in placesI can’t clean, fleshy flower tubesbroken off the orchids’ reachers [End Page 35] into available spaces, and I hatethese buds for not growing, quite,for being buried so deep in himas to be unavoidable, and I hatewhichever seeds made it homewith us and eventually might take.These feelings I have quietly.But sometimes, when arduousconversations or days make melonesome, I snatch my boyfriendoff the sofa, where he stays, andinto bed. I press against his backand he warms fast, even thoughhe only holds me when my handturns him so. It’s a funny kindof love to take his touches gently. [End Page 36] Zach Linge Zach Linge’s poems are published or forthcoming in AGNI, New England Review, Poetry, and elsewhere, and their most recent refereed article appeared in a special issue of African American Review on Percival Everett. Linge is the recipient of scholarships to The Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and lives in Tallahassee, where they teach poetry and serve as Editor of the Southeast Review. Copyright © 2021 Pleiades Press