Poetry: Rebecca Street
Sixth Sense
1. Gustation
If I was the one screaming, you were the one covering my mouth.
Call this an oversight, if you will.
I was too loose. I was shaken, not stirred. I was free and handed to you by a stranger.
Remember when you replaced the racket in my hand with a baseball bat?
Skull cracks. Skull breaks. A bloody wake.
Poetry on the tennis court.
2. Sensation
The last ten months on your lips and the eight intimidating years between us on mine.
I chased you through the woods. I was never able to catch up and you never once looked back.
I was too fucking loose. I was so stretched out, from one end to the other. Skin and bones. Just
what you ordered.
3. Audition
I shook on the dance floor to the beat of my neighbors’s drum and took the hand of a woman and
pretended not to want her. Why didn’t she pull me into her arms? If only I had made love with
her instead.
You told me about the red car you drove that had broken gears. Reversing was not an option. I
learned my lesson that night.
I was so loose. I was stumbling.
4. Vision
I remember driving to the place it all began. You didn’t see me. You didn’t turn back. You didn’t
reverse.
My stomach felt tight and constricted, the way your arms held me down.
5. Olfaction
Golden beads of sweat. Tequila detox.
6. Sixth Sense
Some days I am a corpse. Others I am overflowing.
Rebecca Street is a queer poet and writer from New Orleans, Louisiana. Her best work is usually a product of overdosing on caffeine and talking to strangers.
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