What Men are Made Of, and: Again the Mind Apart

Abstract

What Men are Made Of, and: Again the Mind Apart Justin Wymer (bio) What Men are Made Of Animus, anus, junebugs in the britches.A voice with a father's jawline behind it.In line at the feedstore, staring at calves hauling shaped, then trying to read the wall.Dip-lipped, drowsy, never over suckling. I have a lump therefore a breast.I have similitude to how menverb nouning as too squirrely. I wear my nailsdelicate. Heresy's a pretty name forthe baby. Calling me Baby can beheretical, even in the mind, orso had said a man. To be clear: I didn't die from the pastor come get mefor over-avid honeysuckle consumption.Man, after all, must survive his station. His body is notational: crossstick / choke / center edge / scrape / let ring /rim shot / bell / edge the bell / let ring. What pleasure isn't notional? What man doesn't want to be beautiful? Let me rubthe angry blush from your ears. I'm sorryfor knowing how to please youbut letting knowledge stand for act: The wild grape vine swung across the ravine oncan't ever root, it crawls the hardwood torsoup to find where canopy slits to sun. [End Page 71] Again the Mind Apart I exist in memory and portent. No father or father yes. A man I met fell in love with a poet like the father of the man I ruined myself for. He talks of cruising in Kentucky, how many taps it takes to get to the center of longing. I never got the chance. Green hills, murmured into, I. Dog brought a deer hip to the door rug as a gift. Out of pride. Out of anger at those who live better. Hidden in proverbs, the child of eventual legal ravishing. We couldn't always pay for haircuts. On the table now a pack of cigarettes, lentil soup bowl, book of Spanish proverbs, passport, key, a tissue I hardly remember ruining. I would rather come from anywhere the anonymity loves. The looks drip off me like oil on a bulb. So I try to compass. To count the hair shops, escape into apothecaries where recipes promise reasons not to close. Try to bow like a dead man petitioning to see grass again. Collect laughter and unstifle it. Who told you that, I want to ask, was it about the stain above my pocket? Drink more acid, rub the oily yellow peel over my hands before washing, not say "hands" too often, let them linger on my shoulder without thinking we're figures hanged in a cave together, and buy some house shoes. To be my own conduit, a single louse caught in a wave, trying to say yes. At dawn I put on my face again. I breathe out faded envelopes. One thought is a dale, the gift of green murmur; one, a humming pelvis; one, a man confused at the twenty-nine jasmine hanging from his heart. [End Page 72] Justin Wymer Justin Wymer is an Appalachian poet, editor, and educator. He has been awarded fellowships from the University of Iowa, Spanish Ministry for Culture and Sport, Academy of American Poets, Radcliffe Institute, and Harvard Office for the Arts as well as a Rockefeller International Experience Grant. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD at the University of Denver, where he curated a folio on queer-trauma-related literature for Denver Quarterly. His first collection, Deed, won the 2018 Antivenom Poetry Prize and will be published by Elixir Press in 2019. He lives in Denver. Check out his website at justinwymer.com. Copyright © 2019 University of Wisconsin Board of Regents