What do you dream of, bellybutton,
when we sleep and you rise up
and down like waves? Is it oval emptiness
in my stretching backbends, is it dust
or my mother’s blood? Is it pressing
against a cold mirror, where you squint
& search for the other end? What about
finding a jean button as smooth as a tongue?
I’ve thought about this, your smallness,
the way it hurts when I reach in
and look for something that’s been gone
for years, but still makes mountains
out of absence. I’ve disfigured you
into figure eights, filled you with salt water,
poked you with sticks. But you’ve never seen
my eyes reflect their bottomless fantasies:
I pull my tendons to their extremities
but no matter how I wrap myself
you will only be a residuum of explosion,
a memory of the beginning, a spot of light
on the bending surface of the sea.
E.K. Bartlett
E.K Bartlett (they/them) is a Paris-based writer, editor, and translator. The recipient of the Gigantic Sequins Poetry Award of 2021 judged by Arisa White, and nominated for Best of the Net in fall 2022, their work has been published in Asymptote, Jet Fuel Review, Indigo Literary, Rust + Moth, Pulp Poets Press, Necessary Fiction, among others. Their translation of the full-length poetry collection called Out of Hope by Elodie Felix-Kimmel was published by Editions du Petit Véhicule in 2022.
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