GLOW | QUEER POETRY FEATURE: NATALIE BRIGGS

​Below, you will find three poems from Natalie Briggs.

---

you look good in green

Dream about you throwing
me out of the window.

There are flowers,
we are twin brothers.

Bodies transparent,
looking for the moon

In the same place it was when I fell asleep.
We forget to keep the windows open

and I hear you in the kitchen,
asking nothing of me.

Informal existential crisis,
deer on my front lawn.

Hand slapped to floorboard,
big soft red flowers falling.

Clothes to wash,
knives on dinner plates.

Mutts asleep in driveways.
The vines growing into my skin

will leave green scars,
you’ll rip them from my back

and plant them in our yard.
Head down in the shower,

Water into,
window falling out.

---

greeting shape

I rest two fingers in the ditch of your clavicle,
trough no animal will eat out of.

I haven’t cancelled our electrical bill,
the new couple living there sitting in our light.

I tent, weigh you down at the corners.
The wet towel I used to soak up the water is still wet.

Birth a mattress, teeth plastic away from foam.
Bed opening across the floor.

I crack open my chest.
Ants cover my lungs,

mourning me out of body
into the wire sculpture of a bowl.

---

poem 27

Silence never sickening
ornamental cock

The temperate, educated crown of words
you wore when you fucked me

Circular and sloping, wearing boots mostly
scars greying along with your hair

I asked to see the beige belt
you bought across the street

Buoyant, quick to mend
asking me if I was ashamed to be seen kissing a man

Your recovery the color of mud
Screaming at your pussy

Your pussy screams back
buildings fall in slow-mo

Standing on a chair
pouring smoke onto my hair from a glass

Keep your self above the surface
use your body

I taught you how to swim
tiny whale, slow moves

Water doing nothing to my desire
I am being alone

Darkness splits itself
Sitting across from you

Smashing lemon
into the bottom of the cup

We have great timing
I ask someone to tell the truth, they do

On your knees
hitting marbles

Outside to take a phone call
Headed back to the Midwest, or California

Telling me you are so open
convincing whatever is closing in

to please take it’s time

---

​Natalie Briggs is a queer poet and artist living in Melbourne, Australia. A graduate of the IPRC poetry program in Portland, OR., she is the author of the self-published chapbook, ‘the burial is polite’. An undergraduate at RMIT in Melbourne, she is concentrating on long distance love, video work, and friendship. Say hello: natalie.elizabethbriggs@gmail.com, @natalieebriggs