Zoe Tuck
Life is not a joke
Life is not a joke
but by jokes we understand life
sorrow strikes a sudden storm
what flowers in its aftermath?
the crocuses push up in their enduring form
pissers piss in the pissoirs of Paris
but where I am is the capital
of the present moment
years from now I would love
to discover that desire kept
on the other side of touch, too,
finds its flower
chthonic colors
cowboy neighbors
for the span of a daydream
the chrysanthemum kingdom flourished
then fell as a curl brushed my cheek
provoking an itch
tell me I’m not a lech
by language I try to unkiss
what my eyes have kissed
even a bent follower arrives
somewhere by way of love’s pedagogy
it was not for naught:
suffering
sublimation
languor
even labor, I flatter myself,
though I can’t discern it
in some dark center
each form harbors its other
the mother of the moment is simultaneity
what Marxists approximate in the materialist
mysticism of their dialectic
everything that exists or doesn’t exist speaks somehow
I felt the wet surface of the plate for culinary debris
scanned the book’s pages for juice or heat
in the clarity that sometimes follows a mood swing
I realized my peripherality as radical truth
and undeniable illusion
placing my hand on the root
was then an embodied gesture
to show you that I know…what?
knowing that you know that I know
that everything is connected would make me feel
so connected to you
and under your gaze’s little sun
I’d flourish like a little flower
After “[Sonnet] You Jerk You Never Called Me Back” by Bernadette Mayer
You’re a big fucking weirdo and that’s why I like you
identifying as a goblin you tuck your lower lip under your upper teeth
and do a little dance. One of your surgical scars never healed
you call it your goo button because when you push it
goo comes out which your therapist says is a form of self-harm
You were a horse girl which I think is why my mom texted us
that lesbian pulp book cover “the big book of lesbian horse stories”
so embarrassing. And now neither of us have texted her back for two days
I try to remember if the orcs in Lord of the Rings ever rode horses
although an orc isn’t exactly like a goblin, is it, being more mucilaginous
and given to evil. “Come buy, come buy” the goblins cry,
in Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” about their goblin fruits
I’ve tasted their “Figs to fill your mouth” and their “Citrons from the South”
to taste them yourself, turn to page 37; to watch Lord of the Rings again to drown it all out, turn to page 80
After “A Plumber’s Guide to Light” by Jesse Bertron
What I’m realizing about working at the bookstore
is that books are dusty and that it’s harder to kneel
on a cement floor than it used to be. I think I would
be going from kneeling to standing a lot more
if we had been able to have a kid, and I wouldn’t
have these long uninterrupted stretches of time
in which to read or watch all the shows that Emily
says are mid. They weren’t mean about it
just stating a fact. And it’s true, I do like mid shows
light fare is a comfort when the day is so jarring
and painful. I don’t mean my knees. The bookstore
is only one of like five gigs I have. The others
mainly involve sending emails and worrying.
In my mid shows, there is often a character
who is called to some kind of sacred purpose.
Andrea mentioned that Bernadine goes
to divinity school and I remember that I thought about that
for a second. I think I would make a pretty good priestess
or rabbi. More than one person has affirmed that
I would make a good cult leader, but I loathe
to be the Authority. I want the light to fall on
all of us, democratically, and when it comes
I don’t want to be too numb to feel it. The tools
of a priestess are her tongue and her hands
that sounds dirty but I mean to part the sweet syllables
like a tongue through meringue. I want to coax
the germ of the sacred and kiss it onward to your ears
hold you all for a moment like my babies, and you are.
I dreamt that a bus was still possible
I dreamt that a bus was still possible
My limbs no longer compatible with long still confinement
My gender
Zach and I used to joke about the trans agenda
Buttonwillow McKittrick was a rambling them with a pizza in their hand
for me
Who had done nothing but neoliberal
To deserve it
I was bonded into a tree
So it seemed too late to leave these united states
The country of my birth is a state. I am told
To swallow an improper exile
By no one but my own sense of propriety
The bus was Gary cooper, warm amber light, coffee and donuts, not upper class propriety
I’ve been using the same word twice
Still as afraid of being misunderstood as when I was a girl, I tell you it’s a signature stylistic technique
A gesture of husbanding my words
A rinsed pickle jar has more uses
What’s coming seems so clear to me
Like burned spies we must go to ground
But the refugee centers will at first have nothing to do with us
The future is not a foregone conclusion
You tell me
So fight or
build equity
The house is a surrogate
A mother a convent a business
The house shelters the dreamer
From what in a nightmare manifest childishly as the bad guys
But the bus could fly
On account of its palm frond wings
Strong because bespelled
More baum than bernoulli
A true American hybrid ironically departing
Selfish girl you only think of self preservation
You’re a failure of altruism
Saint zero
In the movie you will be portrayed as ugly
I yassified my indolence
I yassified my indolence
but tears still fell
from the cheek of my partner
I wanted to be paid
by the pound
in gold bouillon
for pure playful presence
but this was pure phantasy
I thought the fifth gig
might be a quintessence
of value—a Bechdel-friendly
fifth element
pyramid power
to protect a flawed but
like it or lump it, Elon
Earth
but I was only luring myself
into a metaverse of my own making
flashing a simulacral multipass
around town
it signified nothing
my net worth, a net of flame
and I the flung acrobat
I surfed the net
the jolie-laide geocities
built of angel fire
goddetc seared
my organs of perception
by showing me the 26
kinds of value
before flinging me back here
where we suffer ourselves
to be momraths in the monad
of money
Zoe Tuck was born in Texas, became a person in California, and now lives in Western Massachusetts. She is the author of Bedroom Vowel (BUNNY Presse, 2023) and Terror Matrix (Timeless, Infinite Light, 2014), in addition to the chapbooks The Book of Bella (Doublecross Press), bound in a dos-a-dos edition with Emily Hunerwadel's Peach Woman, and Vape Cloud of Unknowing (Belladonna* Collaborative). With Britt Billmeyer-Finn, she is the co-host of The But Also house reading series and she co-edits Hot Pink Magazine with Emily Bark Brown.