‘cutting greens’
— Nix Thérèse
Have you ever had a small encounter completely shift your worldview? If you can recall what a strange magic those moments are, this poem will also catch you in its snare. Even from the opening, we can feel that something’s awry: “curling them around / i hold their bodies in obscene embrace / thinking of anything but kinship.” Cooking can bring a community together or nourish a single body enough to go out into the world, but the speaker here instantly presents themself as singular. Save for their presence, the kitchen appears to be empty, yet this distance ironically made me wonder if anyone was waiting for this meal. Who’s causing the speaker to note just how far they've gone into their imagination? It feels almost petty to say “I’m not thinking of them” when they could be in the next room, when they could be listening. But the reluctance/resistance on the speaker’s part to being folded into company and seen as anything but themself is so relatable that it begs us to question how this will be resolved.
The conflict only twists further: “the cutting board is black, / my hand, / and just for a minute / the greens roll black under the knife / and the kitchen twists dark on its spine.” Suddenly everything near them twists toward a darkness, but the void is somehow welcoming. It brings every object into a communion with the speaker that wasn’t entirely possible before. I’m always wowed to feel how each object experiences the cut: the cutting board makes the slice easier, the hand works with precision while applying needed pressure, the greens snap & break apart finally, and the kitchen absorbs this sound & energy. We’re pulled into a symbiosis that I didn’t expect. Yet the cinematic quality of moving across this kitchenscape makes me almost taste these fresh and bitter greens on my tongue. It stuns me how any experience can be spliced into new angles if we remain open to seeing anew.