Sophia Lauer
Winter 2023 | Poetry
Loose Woman
After Layli Long Soldier
Why do you deny yourself the fantasy that is casual sex? is [essentially] the question posed to me
by a [male] friend taken by my [luminous] body, that [feminine] chasm carved in delicate
[deliberate] grounds.
•
I used to [ ] trouble my mother was a child once as well and I [cannot] wonder what she did
or I will, [too]. Maybe this will be a [cumbersome] kind of meaningful poem.
•
The brackets are a way to [de]note my careful consideration of the structure [with]in the
structure, the origin[al] stanzas all broken into my better judgement, that intention [some] men
think is worth the celebration. I am convinced outside the brackets that [my] bodies are a
ceremony worth carrying out to completion.
•
In pondering [t]his question, [I] think on the definition of the term record:
a song, about whatever.
the hurried scribblings of a [desperate] woman hoping for a story to [m]other; the
sort of thing that gets me worried about the feeling of a car chase speeding by [my]
children, [little] girls on the side of the road [sipping] from puddles they were born
in while bloodied black geese fly over[head] getting shot down from those very
rushing vehicles hurtling toward the schism in the absence of an appropriate
preposition to describe it all in the case that one [wo]man wants the story [re]told
by anyone out of an abundance of remembrance and—dare I say?—[ ].
the act of producing a story, at least a body, at most everything that ever mattered;
only everything ever experienced, [hence] the body; all walking, [chronicling]
those slithering truths unseen.
•
Apparently everyone is [after] my body. They have no memory of the weight [lost] even if I can
still feel it in the interior [reminiscence] of my thighs. [Al]right but I am [hesitant] to think you
all find me [beautiful,] at least worthy?
•
Everyone would be honored, that is how disgustingly exalted I am in the absence of any
adulterated [meta]physical urges. My translucence is my [greatest] attractive quality, according
to the church erecting stained glass in commemoration of [my] bodies colliding violently, any
kind of sleep hands bone [wet] push force to the ire of my venerated [lower] lip.
•
The more I consider the less I am [diametrically] opposed to [ ] the space empty as I am.
This time is a [w]hole I am singing in, singly.
•
Anyway my days are nothing these days [passing]. I tell him so and that everything is [ ] for
me, [no] words for that. Some kinds of [catastrophic] material feelings can’t be described, like
[lustful] idolatry. What is one if not [the] other?
•
I can [only] push my fingers into the soft flesh of this [fruit] and make amends with the rib[s] of
my body. No answer, only [ ] at the ravine [where] I lost the lesson in the darkness, [head]lights up[on] little girls splash[ing] in the after[birth].
Sophia Lauer is a grad student and lecturer at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst, pursuing a Master's of Fine Arts in poetry. Her poetry explores sex, grief, and life with an eating disorder. Sophia is currently undertaking a mission to read all of Toni Morrison's novels, learn to knit a raglan sweater, and prove to her orange tabby cat, Sam, that he is the most loved little man in the world. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Trestle Ties, Sad Girl Diaries, and Authylem.