Four Poems by Sarah Cavar

POV: Asking my clinician what he will get me (free)

My doctor foots an opening too small for me.
A catholic chamber, tabernacle tight. Beast-abreast
In steady follow.
Satan’s like a tabby fat these days, a six of furring
pounds and ribs and ounces. A pussy
not the coward-kind or cat
But like the act of snatching.

eating poem

dishes on his eggs         yolky carcasses to dry          my father, as if calories                      are not

calories, if suspended                     unwashed                  in spacetime        I mean: coldwater

baptisms linger slick unsudzed         guts at the navel of the sick bowl

memory, concentrate              smells of feet plus      garlic mustard                        dried milk

crossing ketchup-dry                countertop       I mean the inside         of a wince

I mean his frootloops milk     and mine                    I mean the mustard    clings to the dip of the

ass of the metal so sour I gag rainbows  I mean the       shit

where you eat              I mean                         the morning and evening and gagwater faucet           I

mean: I am                  a freezer pixie:            small   &energy   dense                      I mean

surely               he will wash                his hands                     again   

Pause the nightmare! I am joying

Did you know
you can can eat
a zebra-striped tomato
like an apple;

intumescent blueberries
sweet enough
to swear at?

When chef’s knife flesh
fishskins featherquick
rawscar your fingers
run like dice & leave
the future in the little
of your palms?

&Inside
There will be ash

&When there is ash, the ash
Will make its way behind your mask
Your eyes, your every-colored crevice,
and afterward you q-tip
till you cum          laughing

to evening, with last week
’s basil in your crevices, your mouth
a thing of realizing: alone

is the sound of a voice
beneath the shuttered crepe-shop’s windows
still blanketed by fairy lights.

As a poet, I oversalt my food.

I do

Endless silly things
to my body, husband

animal, dyke-
bewedden.

Sometimes, I even breathe smoke
but only when I’m feeling frisky;

on occasion dream to bingedown
all my wet food

find fish-eyes in the empty well
of afterward.

And in all the long meanwhile danger pianos on like a planet
with one hand

in my spacious cunt.

Today we lifted gourmet pickles, garlic salt,
ate that shit

for breakfast, straight
from our kissing-crooks.

Then I set myself on fire with the mirror
like a guilty california.

Sarah Cavar is a PhD student, writer, and transgender-about-town, and serves as Managing Editor at Stone of Madness Press. Author of two chapbooks, A HOLE WALKED IN (Sword & Kettle Press) and THE DREAM JOURNALS (giallo lit), they have also had work in Electric Literature, The Offing, Bitch Magazine, and elsewhere. Cavar navel-gazes at cavar.club and tweets @cavarsarah.

Check out HFR’s book catalog, publicity list, submission manager, and buy merch from our Spring store. Follow us on Instagram and YouTube. Disclosure: HFR is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Sales from Bookshop.org help support independent bookstores and small presses.