kagablog

in the sunday independent 7 september 2002

pravasan pillay’s tearoom books has published the chapbook of the year.

there’s no escaping it.

the moment you see gary cummiskey’s face you start screaming

because

there is fire in the enema of art

he put it there

poignantly

not yet free of the dream nor of the memory of when you came to me not wearing panties beneath your light summer dress

but the moment you got on top of me and you saw my face you started screaming

As far as South Africa is concerned a reason for Gary Cummiskey’s neglect may stem from the fact that he spent almost 20 years in Randburg, and by the time he returned to settle down in Sandton, the political situation had changed and so Cummiskey’s surrealist work seemed out of place. Thus Gary had become a marginalised figure as a result of poth psychogeographical and cultural factors.

He writes in “European Writers” “Some people became poets after corresponding with European writers. I became a poet after sleeping on a razorblade.”

And this means that Gary is sharp.

He’s busy looking for a magic wand - no strings attached.

Another problem that may account for the relative obscurity of Gary’s work is the difficulty of placing it within the various ‘movement’ categorisations. While Romancing the Dead contains a number of poems dealing with the Colonial City scene in Joburg, the rest of his work does not particularly reflect the social context in which it was created.

In the end it boils down to the “Painting”:

I am hungry and dirty.
My feet stink.
I want to brush my teeth.

However, it can also not be ignored that Cummiskey’s illness sometimes made him an extremely difficult person, and most publishers and editors were reluctant to deal with him. For this reason alone Pravasan Pillay must be commended. Despite there being no physical attraction Pillay liked Cummiskey as a friend.

Gary was aware of his outsider status, and openly declared that he did not wish to fit in with any particular group or category. But there is a difference between being an outside and being marginalised to the point of neglect - and Cummiskey’s work is neglected. (Although Stephen Gray would probably not agree).

Romancing the dead is a funeral ceremony and all Gary’s sleeping relatives sit on the floor of the bathroom around the bath where his corpse is laid. Once the sleepers have been given the pills to swallow when you left you took them out from your handbag and slipped them back on.

Some people become poets after sleeping with European writers. Gary Cummiskey is a razorblade. Very sharp.

Aryan Kaganof
5/11/2009

tearoom books
ISBN 978-0-620-44717-1

introduction

The work contained in this Big Bridge feature is by no means a wide representation of contemporary South African writing. It is rather a bringing together of some writers whose work I respond to, and there are of course many fine writers whose work is not here. It is therefore not a general “anthology of South African writing”. It is nevertheless hoped this selection will give readers an insight into the diversity of creative voices in South Africa; a diversity that is in part reflective of the multicultural nature of South African society.

The voices range from established names such as Kobus Moolman and Kelwyn Sole, to newer ones such as Neo Molefe Shameeyaa. There is the performance-orientated work of Richard Fox and Mphutlane wa Bofelo, and the socio-political voice of Vonani Bila. There are mavericks such as Aryan Kaganof and Goodenough Mashego, and the subjective lyricism of Alan Finlay and Mxolisi Nyezwa. There are also several women represented: Arja Salafranca, Haidee Kruger, Janet van Eeden, Megan Hall, Colleen Higgs, Makhosazana Xaba and Neo Molefe Shameeyaa.

The short fiction selection is only a handful of pieces, but again it is hoped they will indicate the diversity of short fiction writing in South Africa: from the poetic prose of Haidee Kruger and fantasy of Silke Heiss, to the playfulness of Liesl Jobson. There are the parables of Allan Kolski Horwitz and the exploration of relationships in the realistic work of Colleen Higgs and Arja Salafranca. Pravasan Pillay’s story is a sensitive study of early adolescence while Gary Cummiskey’s surreal horror story touches on issues central to a historically divided society: isolation, the Other, uncertainty and violence.

go to big bridge to read gary cummiskey’s selection of South African Poetry by

Gary Cummiskey

Kobus Moolman

Arja Salafranca

Haidee Kruger

Anton Krueger

Janet van Eeden

Mxolisi Nyezwa

Kelwyn Sole

Richard Fox

Alan Finlay

Megan Hall

Colleen Higgs

Aryan Kaganof

Mphutlane wa Bofelo

Vonani Bila

Goodenough Mashego

Makhosazana Xaba

Neo Molefe Shameeyaa

Allan Kolski Horwitz

Khulile Nxumalo

I picked up this gem (directed by Charles Band of Puppet Master fame) on video cassette a few years ago. The film’s sole piece of genius is
this: the head of the family is a giant super intelligent head named Myron. Let that soak in for a bit. The head of the family is a giant
super intelligent head named Myron. Should you watch this? Yes. Yes, you should.

Breaking news: According to Wikipedia (I know…I know), a sequel entitled, Bride of the Head of the Family, is planned.

http://tearoombooks.blogspot.com

The low budget mock horror There’s Nothing Out There, directed by Rolfe Kanefsky, is of note mostly because it predates Scream (1996) in
it’s self-conscious referencing of horror movie conventions. This is accomplished mostly through the character Mike, who like Scream’s
Randy is a horror geek. Apart from this touch (and it really is just a touch) the film is a straightforward Kids in Peril in A Cabin in the
Woods set-piece (there’s nothing wrong with that, of course). Though pitched as a lighthearted romp, it does have a few genuinely scary
moments. The film has gathered a bit of cult following because of the Scream connection: check out it’s pretty extensive site here:
http://www.theresnothingoutthere.com/main.htm

If you want to do a Cabin-In-The-Woods-Horror-Parody theme night you might want to pick up the Duplass Brothers’ above-average Baghead.
(2008).

Hat-tip to Anand Naidoo who lent me his VHS copy of There’s Nothing Out There back in 2000. Naidoo is probably the most knowledgeable
genre movie fan in the country. He’s seen it all.

This review first appeared here: http://tearoombooks.blogspot.com/

as of now the tearoom books blog is here

4 October 2008

Dear Priya

I hope you are well. An opportunity has arisen to publish a short article on Sivakami’s children’s songs. The collection will appear in Chimurenga, a South African-based journal. The reason I’m writing is to request permission to reprint the lyrics to Sivakami’s “Songololo Song”. I have had the song translated from the original Tamil into English (see below) with the help of Vish Naidoo, the Port Shepstone poet and priest. I’ve adapted the rhyming structure myself and have tried my best to retain the spirit of the original. I know the song is one of your favourites and I think we can agree that it is devoid of any trace of the occult. My girlfriend, Jenny (who you met in December), has recorded a rough demo of the song following Sivakami’s original melody. I’ve attached it here for your interest. Excuse the poor sound quality.

Please let me know if all this meets your approval. This would mean a lot to me. I’ve had a rather lean patch publishing wise recently and have not had a piece of writing published (outside the self-published route) in over 4 years. Indeed, the last piece of any substance ‘The Radio-Cabinet’ – a short story – was published 8 years ago. I think this might be an opportunity for me to re-enter the South African writing scene. And, of course, more importantly, it will provide Sivakami a wider audience. The publication deadline is quite soon so there is some urgency.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Best,

Pravasan

*

Songololo Song

Under stone, stick and bone x 2
Songololo lives alone
When we hoe, when we sow x 2
He comes out from below

Chorus
He is long, he is strong x 2
Come sing songololo’s song

Go to bed, rest your head x 2
Songololo will be fed
There he goes, up your nose x 2
Creeping on a thousand toes

Chorus

If you cry, if you sigh x 2
Songololo comes to pry
Dry your tears, close your ears x 2
Or in there he disappears

Chorus

i don’t believe one
should have experiences

it was a real treat to crack open pravasan pillay’s collection “glumlazi” this morning.

instead of trying to muse philosophical about the impact of his poems on my mind, it might be more appropriate to document the effect they had on my face.

here were some of the expressions i went through while reading through this sardonic little compilation over my coffee:

laughter, wincing, more laughter, puzzlement, laughter, surprise,
brooding head nodding, enjoyment, smiling…

each of the tight little poems in here packs a punch. i was reminded of piet hein’s “grooks” from the 70’s with their pithy comments on states of affairs. the influence of wopko jensma is also acknowledged and is occasionally evident, but most of all pillay has created an idiosyncratic style all his own.

many of the poems seem to emerge out of his rueful murmurings on failed relationships, and yet even at his most bitter there is an ironic self-deprecating humour.

best
i’m not the best of the
insecure poets

and throughout the book there is an appeal to take things easier, to relax from the strain of taking ourselves too seriously.

letter to upstarts
my ideal job would be
to unsharpen your
pencils

there are also political overtones and an awareness of larger structures, and yet, politics is always entwined with the personal:

nats vs. gnat
she accepts the penance
of the nats but not mine

and then there is the more sultry side of his cynicism. if some of the contents had been toned down for a more commercial consumption, this booklet might have been a bestseller, but pillay doesn’t compromise, and some of the humour is biting.

swamp blues
her swamp need a
thing

and

vibrator
her vibrator’s got a
better car than me

and

beeswax
got her beeswax
on my mind

by the end of this all too brief foray into pillay’s personal perspective, there is an acknowledgement of the limitations of what desire, love and politics can do. even the capacity of what poetry itself can achieve is quietly derided.

three pin plugs, two pin sockets
this so-called extra sense of
poets
will not bring them power

the one thing that remains when all of these have fallen away, is the humour. we can often do without the philosophy, without politics, even, perhaps, without love, but it is hard to get by without laughter.

Hot Stuff came to Montford Primary in Standard Three and transferred from it around the middle of Standard Five. The hatred towards him crystallized on 10 March 1989, the day of the school disco, but he was always disliked. Hot Stuff was aloof and gave the impression that he was better than everyone else. There was no reason for him to think this. He was ugly, terrible at school and sports, poor even by Montford’s standards, and had no friends. Still, that didn’t stop him from walking the corridors of the school as if he was above it all. The way he would walk past a game of, say, five-stones, and not even show the slightly interest, rubbed people the wrong way. He had, people thought, airs about him.

The entire Montford Primary could have been wrong in their estimation of Hot Stuff. He could have been the most humble, likable boy around. But because he never spoke, because he never engaged, no-one could tell. For two and a half years Hot Stuff was present at Montford Primary. There isn’t much more to say. He showed up, never participated, scrapped by the exams, and showed up again.

Hot Stuff had come to Montford from the South Coast town of Renishaw. His family were farmers, part of a small group of Indian families that still stayed in and around the sugarcane plantations where their grandparents and great-grandparents had worked. Hot Stuff, along with his sister, went to school for half the day and worked in their fields the other half. His father had moved the family to Montford because he had found work in one of the metal works factories in Jacobs.

Hot Stuff’s unusual life wasn’t the most interesting thing about him though. The interesting thing about him was the way he looked. He was an average ten-year-old Indian boy in size and height, perhaps a bit beefier because of his field work. He had a thick pompadour held in place with coconut oil, deep set eyes and a large hooked nose. But what set him apart was his skin. Hot Stuff’s skin was covered in a network of large red blotches, which were so severe that it was difficult to make out his real skin colour. The official explanation was allergies.

Soon after he arrived at the school Pravasan Pillay, a classmate of Hot Stuff made the following comment loudly in History class: “He looks like Hot Stuff.” Pravasan had been reading the Harvey Comics title of the same name at the time, and had had blurted it out without really thinking. It was a poor observation. Apart from the redness of his skin, Hot Stuff bore little resemblance to the trident carrying, diaper wearing little devil. But the name stuck.

There are just two incidents involving Hot Stuff that warrant retelling. The first happened about a year and half after he transferred to the school. He turned up one scorching Durban morning with his head covered in white bandages, with his pompadour still protruding out the top. His left arm was also swathed with bandages. Hot Stuff had disappeared off of the radar for much of that year and a half but the utter strange nature his appearance again brought him into consciousness. There were one or two comments of the bandages being an improvement but the knowledge that the blank bandages concealed an equally blank face below soon caused interest to wane. Pravasan, who has since moved on from Harvey Comics to more mature fare like D.C’s The Doom Patrol, thought that from certain angles Hot Stuff resembled the Patrol’s Negative Man. But this time he didn’t say anything about it.

The bandages came off about two weeks later and the skin on Hot Stuff’s face and left arm appeared redder and was covered with tiny scabs, almost as if he had had a kind of localized measles.

The second incident took place in the first term of 1989. The headmaster of Montford, Mr. Moothiram, announced that every class from Standard Three onwards would be allowed to attend a school disco, to be held during school hours on the last day of the first term. Each pupil would have to pay five Rands to attend, and the money collected would go towards the building of a school basketball court. Mr. Moothiram wanted to spend as little money as possible on the organization of the disco and insisted that all the arrangements would be done in-house. This meant that the disco would be held in the school multi-purpose room, that there would be no store-bought decorations or mirrored balls or professional D.J. or catered food. The Standard Fives were in charge of organizing everything.

It was during a meeting attended by all the Standard Fives and chaired by the guidance councilor Mrs. Singh to discuss the distribution of tasks that Hot Stuff took his first step towards a new school. Mrs. Singh had just finalized assigning the décor committee and had asked the assembled students who would be interested in DJing the disco. It wasn’t as glamorous a role as the title made out. The D.J. of the first Montford Primary disco (and what turn out to be the last) wouldn’t have had a set of turntables or headset or a booth. He or she would simply have to sit next to the schools ancient HIFI system and press play on the tape deck when the teacher gave the indication and pause when one of the teachers had an announcement. Even the music selection, the essence of DJing, would be out of the DJ’s hands – instead the selection would be made by Ms. Naicker and Ms. Gonum, at 32 and 28 respectively, the school’s youngest teachers. Despite these limitations the position of D.J. was still very much sought over and almost every hand in the room went up. The surprising thing was that Hot Stuff was one of them.

It took a few moments for this to register in the room. Everyone was so concentrated on Ms. Singh, hoping to catch her eye that they didn’t notice that his red arm had also gone up. It wasn’t the most convincing arm-raising in history but it was up nevertheless. It was only when the class caught sight of Ms. Singh’s face that they noticed Hot Stuff. He had never ever raised his arm in class before, not to answer a question, not to use the toilet, not for any reason. There was no hesitation in Mrs. Singh’s mind. She announced immediately that Hot Stuff would D.J. the school disco.

Apart from this single explosion of activity Hot Stuff’s behaviour around the school didn’t change. He was still the same Hot Stuff. Though he attended the disco organizing meetings – at Mrs. Singh’s insistence – he didn’t participate in them. He would just sit near the door and leave around half-way through.

The doors of the disco opened around 10am on a Friday morning. Everyone filed into the multi-purpose room and admired the crepe paper streamers hanging from the ceiling, the tables along the side of the room laden with food and cooldrinks, a box of coloured “disco lights” that had been constructed by the woodwork class, and the table containing the school’s ancient HIFI system. Hot Stuff had already taken his place next to the table, his finger hovering over the play button. A sign in front of the table said: “Please don’t touch the music.” After a brief introduction by the principal, Hot Stuff, with Mrs. Singh’s approval, hit play.

Everything was going well, and there had been at least 45 minutes of dancing when there was a loud scream. Mrs. Singh circumvented Hot Stuff and turned off the HIFI herself. The girl doing the screaming was Rita Reddy, a pretty Standard Five girl who was one of the more popular pupils in the school. Rita took some calming down from the teachers and finally whispered something in Mrs. Naicker ear who in turn whispered into the principal’s ear. The principal then angrily announced that Rita’s pocket diary – which contained a neatly folded twenty Rand note – had gone missing from her purse. He told everyone to search the floor and when nothing turned up he ordered the boys and girls to separate and got the teachers to search their pockets. Again nothing showed up.

It was while the principal was consulting with the other teachers that Pravasan spotted Hot Stuff adjust the front of his pants. It was a quick movement, quite uncharacteristic for the sloth-like Hot Stuff. Pravasan had been having a lousy time thus far. He had been teased about the black poloneck he wore and had been sulking in a corner, not dancing. Rita’s scream and the subsequent search had provided a welcome distraction. Without thinking he shouted out: “Hot Stuff’s got it in his pants. He hid it in his pants” and run over and held Hot Stuff by the collar, lifting his body off of the ground. Hot Stuff made no attempt to fight Pravasan as he rough handled him. The principal separated the two, and then sent the girls out of the class, and in the presence of the boys and the male teachers ordered Hot Stuff to remove his pants. He did so without question. The outline of the pocket diary was clear in his white briefs.

Hot Stuff stayed two more months at Montford Primary, which included two weeks of suspension. His remaining time was not pleasant – boys would punch him whenever he walked by and girls would call him a thief. In short, he was given no space to be aloof. The week Hot Stuff transferred – no-one knows to where – Pravasan and Rita Reddy kissed for the first time. It was Pravasan’s first kiss and he couldn’t stop blushing.

SONGOLOLO MAN

Durban writer Pravasan Pillay has caused a stir with his recent pamphlet on the arson attacks that have plagued Park Rynie since early 2007.* Gazette reporter James Moodley phoned him at his home in Chatsworth.

Gazette: You claim, in your pamphlet, that the roots of the attacks can be traced to a folk story.
Pillay: I argue that the person or persons behind the attacks are inspired by the folk story ‘The Songololo Orphan’ and list some similarities between the story and the attacks.

Gazette: It is a strange take on events.
Pillay: The facts are stranger.

Gazette: By similarities between the story and the attacks you mean the burning cane stalks?
Pillay: Yes, but I also mean that the arsonists - like the orphan - are devoid of malice. Remember that the attacks have caused little or no damage to the affected homes.

Gazette: If the attacks aren’t malicious then what are they?
Pillay: Well, in my opinion, they are - like in the story - a signal to the inhabitants of the homes.

Gazette: A signal conveying what?
Pillay: I’m not sure.

Gazette: Police seem to think that it’s the work of vandals.
Pillay: I don’t see a conflict with their thesis and my own.

Gazette: What was your purpose in writing the pamphlet? To uncover the identity of the arsonists?
Pillay: No, not at all. My purpose, as with the other chapbooks I’ve released in the area, is to highlight the folklore and folklorists of the region.

Gazette: Talking of the region’s folklorists, there seems to be some controversial between yourself and the family of the late folklorist Sivakami Chetty. I understand it concerns the ownership of ‘The Songololo Orphan’.
Pillay: There isn’t any controversy. The story is public domain.

Gazette: You seem to be spending a lot of time in Park Rynie. Any plans to make it your home?
Pillay: No. Not at this time.

Park Rynie Gazette
26 September 2008

*Starting February 2007 and up until September 2008 there have been 9 arson “attacks” on the homes of Park Rynie residents by an unknown person/persons. The “attacks” have been uniform and have seen burning bicycle tires placed on the roofs of residents homes. They have caused a high level of panic despite the fact that there has been almost no damage to the targeted homes.

Gary Cummiskey’s cut-up prose pamphlet April in the Moon-Sun (2006, Dye Hard Press) opens with the following quote from artist and originator (along with long-time collaborator William S. Burroughs) of cut-ups, Brion Gysin: “If you want to challenge and change fate…cut up words.” One needn’t agree with this idea or the Burroughsian conceit of language as a virus and cutups as the diagnosis mechanism to appreciate it’s value as a literary method. For poets cut-ups offer a readily available avenue to go beneath the skin of language, to the mucus below, and to re-emerge with images that blind. Cummiskey’s Moon-Sun, which switches between surreal prose poems of London and Johannesburg, contains many of these kinds of images. On the first reading one gropes about for a narrative but by the second the groping stops and its the beauty of the lines that grab you. Lines - at random - like:

“Suburban living rooms with pretty studded silver nightmares”

“black bodices of stumped romantics”

“spoiled mustard-gas songs”

“the dirty slut caught reading Tarot cards”

“she sent them by express thighs”

“as right-wingers took pot-shots into the ocean”
“her second eye sewn up against the cigarette smoke”

“mama let me out! Let me out of hanging out”

“cheese melt the pussy melt”

“imaginary drunkards”

“I don’t have a heart revolution”

“the waitress leans over with her tits inked all over his pajamas”

“cure me into a poem and never to be seen again”

The line “spoiled mustard-gas songs”, in particular, stayed with me. It takes a certain kind of genius to rip through the membranes that separate “spoiled”, “mustard-gas” and “songs”. Published in 2006 this is some of the most exciting writing in 2008.

Dear Sir

To respond to the letter dated 19 September 2008 (”Pillay Oversteps Mark With Pamphlet”) from Ms. Priya Paul. Paul accuses me of reprinting the story “The Songololo Orphan” by her grandmother, the late Sivakami Chetty, without requesting permission to do so. The offending story appeared in my pamphlet “Concerning the Arson Attacks in Park Rynie” (Tearoom Books, 2008). 300 or so copies of the pamphlet – which drew parallels between the attacks and century-old folklore - were distributed free of the charge around the Park Rynie area in early September.

In her letter Paul – mostly accurately – outlined my relationship with her grandmother. To restate briefly: between 2004 and 2007 I recorded 13 audio cassettes of Sivakami Chetty. The contents of these cassettes encompassed long-standing South Coast folklore, Tamil folk and devotional songs, recipes, and original stories amongst other things. Paul claims that “The Songololo Orphan” is one of these original stories.*

The story was indeed told to me by Sivakami but it is inaccurate to call the story original.** In my subsequent recordings in the South Coast region I have come across four - verbatim - accounts. The story is older than Sivakami and, as such, out of the control of the Chetty family. I have attached my transcripts of these recordings and contact details of the storytellers for the editor’s perusal.

I find it strange that Paul frames her objection as a failure on my part to follow the proper protocols, and implies that had these protocols been observed the Chetty family would have granted permission to reprint the story. As someone who has asked them repeatedly, over the last year, for permission to reprint I can state that this is not so.

Regards,

P. Pillay

*It will interest Paul to know that several of these original stories are actually ingenious appropriations of the plotlines of soap operas, films, and comic books. Sivakami became interested in comics after spotting several in my backpack. Over the years we read through, amongst others, The Doom Patrol, The Suicide Squad, Watchmen and The Green Lantern.

** The songololo motif was quite prominent in my recordings of Sivakami. By my count no less than 14 stories and 3 songs featured a songololo protagonist. In the majority of the stories and all three songs the songololo is portrayed as an amoral trickster along the lines of a Br’er Rabbit or Anansi or Nanabozho. At least two of these trickster stories have their root in the one-act plays of itinerant South Coast puppeteer and fireworks salesman R.K. Naidoo (1882-1922), who I have written about elsewhere (The Strings of R.K. Naidoo, 2007).

the short twenty-five pages of gary cummiskey’s poetry collection today is their creator are the best i’ve read in a while. the poems in these pages disrupt both the meanings of words and their relation to reality and also, and most crucially, for me at least, the overly precious poetic register that dominates local verse. cummiskey’s devices (deadpan lines, surreal word combinations, absurd contexts) are admirably cold but the ideas and emotions being piped through these devices are as hot as hell. this is a difficult art to master and cummiskey, like burroughs before him, does it exceedingly well. file under essential.

isbn: 978-0-620-402820-8
Available directly from the publisher at R40 per copy, including postage.
E-mail dyehardpress@iafrica.com for purchase details.

For three years South African writer, Pravasan Pillay, documented the songs and stories of unknown ninety-one year old South African-Indian folklorist, Sivakami Chetty. Last year after her death, Pillay dedicated an article to her in Unsigned. We speak to him as part of our Contributor Notes Series.

Unsigned: Do you consider yourself an ethnomusicologist/folklorist?

Pravasan Pillay: No. I’m not a trained musicologist or folklorist and I have no interest in academic research or its methods. It was something I fell into after a friend introduced me to Sivakami. I had no experience of field recording before then.

U: Tell us about Sivakami.

PP: She was born in 1916, lost her husband relatively early, and worked as a market gardener until her late seventies. In most respects she was a traditional older Indian woman. It was only when she was singing or telling a story that her personality changed. She’d go into a trance-like state and would barely acknowledge my presence. Her music and stories were concerned with, what I would call, bad men – either human or supernatural.

U: Do you plan on publishing any of these stories or songs?

PP: They’re not mine to publish. My feeling is that they should be out there but Sivakami’s family don’t agree. Our dispute, if you want to call it that, revolves on their request to cut the so-called occult passages from the transcripts. This would mean destroying around eighty per cent of the recordings. I don’t see the point of releasing them in that heavily edited form.

U: Two issues ago (Unsigned#23) you contributed an article, ‘Some Plantation Creatures’, which you dedicated to Sivakami , whose content – complete with diagrams – seemed to suggest that you take the existence of supernatural beings seriously.

PP: I never stated that I believed. It was an investigation.

U: I suppose what I’m getting at is whether the article was in jest. At one point you discuss an albino that rides a giant rat from the canefields. Are you being ironic?

PP: I don’t think that’s what I’m trying to do.

U: Any plans for future recordings?

PP: There are a few story threads that Sivakami left unfinished. I would like to find out how they end, but I’m not sure who could finish them.

Unsigned is a culture journal based in Nijmegen in The Netherlands. Sivakami’s surname has been changed in accordance with her family’s wishes.

his hand on her ass
like a ribcage

she’d rather go down
on the ocean

tangles, binds, and knots
is all he gots

got her beeswax
on my mind