Tommye Blount
To wring out a trill鈥攍ike the robed girls
in the bottom tier under the director鈥檚 spit
shower as he screamed, Sopranos, the Lord
can鈥檛 hear you鈥攊s all I ever wanted there
in the middle-row altos. I dithered below
the boys up in the back row, digging for what
low note they tried to reach on tiptoe. Here鈥檚 what
used to happen: the Lord below was absent to girl-
shadowed castrati鈥攏o meddlesome devil below
or between their legs to strangle their spirited
peals (high enough for the Lord up there
to hear). In Mass, girls were denied the Lord鈥檚
ear, so the boys over the Lord鈥檚 song lorded
in their place. As a boy, I placed what
whiny voice was misplaced in me. The Lord up there
swat it from his discriminate ear鈥擮 my girl-
shadowed din. Once, on my aunt鈥檚 floor鈥攕pitting
up hours before a doctor took me apart below鈥�
I fell to my knees; writhed as if the Lord below
bucked me from its slick back. Shhh! That lord
can鈥檛 hear you down here, it spat, as the pain split
me up to the song-gut. Between my thighs, what
a fiery glossolalia. Back in front row, the girls
trilled the note; the director screamed Up there,
his ruler struck the deacon鈥檚 dais, the note is up there!
God can鈥檛 hear what you have to say if you鈥檙e below
earshot! I was under ether. As with the tangled hair of a girl鈥檚
doll, the surgeon untangled the lurid
lines inside me, his sound God lamp shone鈥攁 watt
searching the devil鈥檚 chords. A divine torture to spite
me, the doctor called it testicular torsion. No, not split,
the ropes raveled between my one bell and the other鈥�
wrung wrong.
聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽Of the not-so-little-anymore boys, what
to do with their鈥攏o, mine, no鈥攐ur bodies wrung in the rafters with no bellow
left to rival Farinelli鈥檚? No organ powerful enough to unload
our dissonant music? There is only left this gall
of a rope鈥檚 burn, spiting no Adam鈥檚 Apple below
our mouths鈥攐pened as if an attempt to sing for the Lord,
but what? This note, too high to hear, from our gnarled bodies?
The sestina, I hate it. With its rotating word scheme, the form is hellbent on preventing any gesture toward linear logic. Oh, I do love when others can successfully pull them off: Diane Wakoski makes it look easy in her witty 鈥淪estina to the Common Glass of Beer: I Do Not Drink Beer鈥�; there is also Phillip B. Williams鈥檚 dynamically ingenious 鈥淚nheritance: The Force of Aperture.鈥� Still, to my mind, perfect examples like these are hard to come by.
It has to do with ego. One鈥檚 ego must be reined in when attempting the sestina. It takes a bit of openness to failure; a welcoming of change鈥攂ehaviors that are difficult for me to grasp in my own life. Vulnerability, that鈥檚 the concept I am struggling to get at here. Its insistence on vulnerability鈥攖hat鈥檚 why I hate the sestina!
This poem was never meant to take on this conceit. For at least five years, it has existed in various iterations. The problem: I had no idea how to handle the bio-medical information. A breakthrough didn鈥檛 come until I read Leila Chatti鈥檚 debut full-length collection 鈥淒eluge.鈥� Now there is a poet who has figured out how to open up the clinically personal to the whims of lyric and form. The result isn鈥檛 navel gazing, but an invitation. Through one body鈥檚 specificity, a reader is invited to see their own. A risky undertaking that pays off for Chatti. Could I do the same thing with this poem? Worth the try.
A poem isn鈥檛 worth its ink if there is no risk involved. This mantra is in my head each time I sit down to write. It鈥檚 how I arrived to this poem. To have broached an uncomfortable and clinical topic, a testicular torsion surgery I had as a teen, within this uncomfortable form, unnerved me. Just because it has, thankfully, been granted a home in Southern Indiana Review鈥檚 pages, doesn鈥檛 make it any less unsettling for me now.
I鈥檝e always preached that poems can be queer spaces because they take on forms that allow them to live. So too with this poem. In order to cut through the sestina鈥檚 so-to-speak noise, the voice I鈥檝e donned needed to sing a few octaves higher; needed a more clarified tonal register. That work was made more complex due to temporal and spatial concerns. Flirting with narrative, shifting time and space proved difficult, as the sestina insists on the diction of a single moment, its repeated words magnetized to their initial origins in the first stanza. All of this is to say, there is a struggle happening on every level in this poem鈥攆ormally (obviously), sonically, and structurally. Tensions arise, something is always working against something else.
Being the queer space that it is, a place where paradox can exist unimpeded, the poem鈥檚 structure鈥攖he narrative strands of information that exist鈥攎ust somehow harness the sestina鈥檚 centripetal force to gain forward momentum. It鈥檚 a rough way. There were countless drafts in which I made it to the envoi, only to realize the path I鈥檇 laid out for myself was a dead end. Up until the last seconds before publication, this poem put up quite a fight. It is my hope that my hatred for the sestina is apparent. By 鈥渉atred鈥� I mean 鈥渓ove.鈥� Is it one of those sestinas that is perfect? Nope, but that is the point. This sestina is evidence of an ongoing struggle on and beyond the page. A bruise.
Tommye Blount is the author of the chapbook What Are We Not For and the full-length collection Fantasia for the Man in Blue鈥攚hich was finalist for the National Book Award, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Poetry, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and others. He is the recipient of聽 commendations, fellowships, and grants from the Whiting Foundation, Cave Canem, Bread Loaf Writers鈥� Conference, Kresge Arts in Detroit, and the Aninstantia Foundation. Born and raised in Detroit, Blount lives in nearby Novi, Michigan.聽