[Self Portraits]
by Aisha Sasha John

self-portrait salsa dancing with an empty argyle sweater

With zest and goodwill we formed a nation. We stood from our chairs, eager to contribute
our bodily honesty. We were thirsty. We knew little of calm. Our motives, they eluded
us. We improvised a dance, the female of us leading. We made no contact with our eyes.
Our groins were more than warm — they tingled. We made touch with parts: smiles, moist
palms. We twirled ourselves in grey wool socks. The smell of swine aroused us. Laughing
we resembled our fathers. Indeed our heels met the floor rarely. The language of the music
just one of us spoke and he sang it. Our female part saw in his mouth a cowboy. Each of
our laughs was a chitter. We did not giggle. We did not guffaw. The blood it rushed
faceward, heating our scalps. Our hair grew minimally. The female of us met bliss and
feared disbandment. She sought refuge in the restroom and on the music journeyed. And
on the music journeyed.

self-portrait as rat

we knew machines.
we had them we ran them
our lives they led them and
we were machines the name of which is
wage. I ate a lot of bacon; my station
required it. a crisp strip of bacon masks
shit I ate both daily.
so frequently demeaned there I lost several natural competencies: grace, subjecthood,
retort.
high-priced shoes the sight of them at
my footrest
soothed me. one year passed my machine
was assessed: they told me I showed too much natural
breast: finally, I died. good
afternoon human
resources may
I help you?

self-portrait fertile

Inwardly insistent
and moreover I couldn’t distinguish any of your
machines

in as much as I am lost
alien ovaried bubbled and
possible.

How your
tendernesses were distinct from oily-fingered
instances,
tell.

I too use:
an epistle for any confession, tidy
pricks to
let blood.

Chick-pea spread of
honey and apricot that is how
my breath smells.

What if I lose myself
partnered?

Ovaried and
possible. The air being all mine here.

Possible it’s certain that
once moonly they drop.

I lose them
I lost
got a raging want a gully-ugly you-ward insistence.
Garishly embarrassing I hid it.

This isn’t even to you;
your recency is how you’re here, plainly
circumstance.

Without a you anyway it’s I, with one still
I, rich
with all this
air.