"Promises I Make From Under My Desk" and "Man vs. Bear"
Promises I Make From Under My Desk
I am going to pluck a floodlight and put it in
my pocket, lift the Peterbilt from the crosswalk,
tuck the football field into an envelope and
post it to myself. I will run a half-a-minute
mile. I will squeeze orange soda from magnolia
leaves, forge steel I-beams from raw sunlight,
teach snails to talk. Spin Chapel Hill on a fingertip,
sling Mount Pisgah into orbit. I will turn back time.
And then and then you will not look away. And then
when I tell you what he did to me, you will believe me.
Man vs. Bear
See, this one I’ve never understood. Do I have a knife in this scenario? Hypothetically? Hypothetically, I am carrying my Bestech Scimitar pocketknife because I do that when I go into the woods. So yes, I think I would choose the man. There’s this guy at the bus stop with a heavy face carved from water. We nod, but we don’t speak. There were these guys in Target, circling as my girlfriend shopped for men’s polo shirts, orbiting us on some unseen current, men twice our height, watching us with disbelieving eyes. Thing is, I was watching them too. I have a fight-or-flight response like you wouldn’t believe. I become someone else, someone who moves with the wind. So yeah, I’d choose the man. Bring it on, motherfucker. And maybe he’s chill. Maybe we split a Slim Jim. A bear is a mystery–I can’t read the rivers of a bear’s great body–but men I know. I know what a man looks like when he wants to eat me.
Sophie Farthing (she/her) is a queer poet and artist living in South Carolina in the USA. Her work has appeared in outlets including Right Hand Pointing, Beyond Queer Words, Impossible Archetype, and Anti-Heroin Chic. Her poetry is also featured in the horror anthology it always finds me from Querencia Press. She is the 2024 recipient of the Elizabeth Boatwright Coker Fellowship in Poetry from the South Carolina Academy of Authors. Sophie recommends Beloved Asheville.
