C. Francis Fisher

Winter

In our apartment: one mirror too high 
to reflect. One red plant. Beneath 
the yellow lamp you alter your body 
with powder. Sand the plaster making dust, 

add water. Remold your form from the refuse. 
Plastic baggies litter our floor. I hear 
you in the bathroom sniffing at your palm. 
Outside, it is not snowing. Only ash 

falls from the sky. Inside, I am as idle 
as a painted girl upon a painted sofa. 
If this is a sonnet, I’ve lost the volta.

Blizzard

I’m hard on you but I do it too. Become Icarus 
on some unknown toilet. So gone but at least 
right now—as a long white log 
divides my own face—I am flying before my wings 

melt. But there will be hot wax. 
Anxiety attacks in pink bathrooms. Steps 
to take before reaching a lofted bed. Instead, 
stand beneath the Chelsea Hotel. Realize 

the sign lost its T-E-L. Find 
it is snowing so hard you grow thick with desire. See 
a head, belonging to an angel. The wooden wrinkles 

on the bottom of its feet. Imagine a Madonna lily. 
Touch my chest where the collar bones meet. 

Self-Portrait at Twenty-Five

Last night I dreamt a man I never met. 
The one my father says became a hawk. 
Science insists the face I gave my grandfather 
is one I’ve seen before. A tired cab driver. 
The man who delivers my mail. At the funeral, 
a bird, heavy and wild, sat upon the casket 
as it lowered. Can this be true? We share 
a birthday. When my mother arrived near 
midnight, the doctor gave her a choice. She 
wanted the later date and says he held me in with 
his foot between her legs. When I came out, I was 
a little too blue and my head was flat. Now 
I realize this is likely a joke, but I know so little 
about birth I always believed her.

Boston Common

A man goes by my bench on a bike. He veers toward
a pigeon and hits it. The guts cover me—refuse,
rat feces. I flail through the park dripping intestine.
My young, hot body inspires horror, disgust!

That did not happen. At the last second the bird
remembered to fly. Suddenly, it is too vague to live.
I’ve picked up the bad habit of mentioning the weather. 
A breeze goes quietly by. Children play 

in inches of water. If given the ocean, I’d only 
know to swim laps by the shore. There is a duck boat, 
brightly pink. There are sparrows. I heard something 
about Shakespeare once—people loved him so much they

brought these birds to America?—was that it? I only
remember waking without you again. Not at home. Not here.

Summer Job 

I work at a restaurant on the corner of Christopher and Greenwich 
where the Empire State Building surveils me. Young 
white couples playing baby with dogs pass me. Old gays 
returning from cruising the pier pass me. They say to whoever 

they’re with did you know that restaurant used to be 
a porno shop? and it’s true! Today, the basement is bright 
and sweaty, a kitchen. Back then, was it darker, still sweaty?
Every time I see a spoonful of soup on its way to an empty 

and waiting mouth, I think of a man taking 
another man’s cock in his hand without sentiment 
but plenty of feeling. Of course, diners would love 
to know this. But the city doesn’t care. A pillow 

just appeared on the sidewalk. I cannot know if it fell 
or was tossed but it lays at my feet all the same. 

About the Author

C. Francis Fisher is a writer, critic, translator, and movement artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She will graduate from Columbia University with a Poetry concentration in 2021. Her poem “Self-Portrait at Twenty-Five” was selected for the Academy of American Poets Prize.