‘Sentence’
— Nix Thérèse
I’ll admit that I’m always looking for a fairytale, though I’m more concerned with the journey than the happy ending. The journey back to intimacy in ‘Sentence’ is so satisfying. I promise that you’ll want to eavesdrop on these remarkably tender moments, like a kid peeking through their fingers at a kiss onscreen.
The poem opens with the blacksmith working: [he] “rinses the metal / fragrant … his thighs fragrant his sneer.” A symbiosis is created between the blacksmith and the tools. His body and his body of work carry the same distinct fragrance, and the whiff of it ghosts my nostrils. Later, the speaker tells us of their journey: “alone in the desert for months / a nomad in a kimono of pressed-together dust.” Like the blacksmith, the speaker is also doused in their former environment. It must be startling for the blacksmith to see the speaker again, their body overtaken by a place he’s never encountered. The moment seems to ask: what does it mean to only experience a space through another’s body?
The speaker’s gaze is remarkably warm on the blacksmith, taking in all the details that they’ve missed. If a gaze can be a touch, the speaker has their hands all over this man and it only amplifies the distance. I’d been waiting with bated breath for some reconciliation. In fact, Corral’s deft control over spacing and line only allows us to take the story in pieces, creating a structural tension that matches the narrative. Going beyond the gaze and actually touching is a feat, and still comes at a distance in the last lines: “gently he hammers gold into a sentence … gently / the sentence enters me.” Yet it’s enough. It’s the moment where my breath unraveled.