All of Us Icemen by Jack Xi
Braced in Aotearoa I find
no frozen facedown dead,
but that water stays water,
no matter how old.
Pulled from my tongue
in the brown palm of the
glacier lake the ice –
knapped as caveman arrows,
hard as breakaway glass –
holds nothing but itself,
and saliva, as light
tests slim facets
til the surface folds.
We toss it back
like it will swim to the floor.
Tourists grin. Grit and boulder
throe shore foam.
My body is shelf
turned wildflower slush.
Less sun glances off it every day.
Tested annually by invisible light,
what calves is also of concern.
What thighs! The glacier parts,
all sung subsonic flaw.
Even distant crystals flinch
as spillage roars.
Satellites tell us
the world's now an engine
for exposing sore rock.
The doctor tells me
we might have ten years,
or twenty. As my windows
steam more every midnight
I stop feeling like it's true.
Ötzi didn't die alone. We know
from the arrowhead
asleep in his wound.
Even copper age air traffic
knew how to be cruel.
Rock tears through blue to weather.
Over muscle knots, dew.
Jack Xi (they/he) is a disabled Singaporean writer. If you see them, they'd love to hear about the last bug you saw.
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Braced in Aotearoa I find
no frozen facedown dead,
but that water stays water,
no matter how old.
the government made the road barriers green to say not everything that is green is yours.
the room stays warm. the city keeps humming.
but for the first time, the future does not smell like fresh paint.the room stays warm. the city keeps humming.
but for the first time, the future does not smell like fresh paint.
I used to fear the maze and its confrontations, but
isn't it a form of freedom and choice? We choose