Rebecca Teich is a writer, editor, and teacher based in New York City. A co-curator of the Fall 2018 and 2019 Segue Reading Series and Artists Space teaching-poet-in-residence 2019-2021, Teich's work has been featured in No, Dear Magazine, poets.org, Nightboat Resonances, The Poetry Project Newsletter, Baest Journal, and elsewhere. A co-founder of The Anchoress Syndicate, a queer poetry and performance collective, Teich’s first chapbook Caffeine Chronicles was published in 2021 by Portable Press @ YoYo Labs.
1 poem
by Rebecca Teich
Editor's note: We recommend reading this piece on desktop due to its unique formatting.
Friends & Lovers
i.
as in, in, communing indebtedness to redistribute
the form
Rubric by which
a relation
is meaningful
w/o permanence
possessed by
full of
another
Repetition imposes a certain kind of death
—another
Material / national grid how seconds feel when passing in a bounded space
Analogues fail me, at this moment.
Often is simply to say:
this story could be told otherwise.
To
siphon form of relation ,
traction
to meld w yr political
desires
touch & linger I cannot lingering moment outside of memory
// different way of infer the analogy imagined in translation of interactive narrative
Hold open possibility of response —also, citation— —cut— —cruise—
Gossip is my space of indeterminacy
homelike
Analogy which says not this is but what could be
[outside touch response
value] referential—has a desire not for but to
be in relation
leave room for -- another
wad up obsession -- another
as prayer attention
positive boundary to form we are trying to find in order to talk about this
how much more wanting can happen
ii.
touch makes possible [what] that sustenance [how]
presence more keenly felt [make]
itself other could be [could be] move beyond critique [to, how]
be regarded as moving [mattering]
insistence on nonexpert status [unmastering] sight [out, of]
the ways we publicly talk [allowed to] speak [able]
speak [respond] something was there [contact]
of green [else] boundaries of what [exceed]
otherwise [otherwise] illegibility [opacity]
censored & commodified [one fell] remix terms [formal]
we are not in conversation [can, could]
forms institutional thought [carceral forms]
carceral forms [of thought, touch]
asked a question [assumptions of the question]
response [of there] misreading [willful]
around [around] around [around]
for not against [origin of disobedience] no fall [accelerate]
a certain kind of destruction uncomfortable [for whom]
or, an act of creation [for the rain] emphatic [itself]
rewind instinct [snap] under duress [most palatable]
legible [much less] destruction is not destruction [for whom creation]
iii.
what voids what void
say these particular
say specific
say willing lyricism
say where wouldn’t they be found
say how’s that so hear
say presence
say plate
say ties across or
say touch at a distance
say mattering conversation from silence
say there was not so to make
say marriage grotesquerie
say out of arrangement
say arrangement
say necessarily impossibility when love
say repetition and exhaustion
say making out of exhaustion
say the politics of who or how we entangle
say get me out of there
say relation from
say communication possible
say in conversation
say point point point point
say when does a vocabulary become shared
say acknowledgments
say private prior
say not whim of audience shapes object
say invocation that is being
say both alone and with others
say keep remembering
say there for her friend
say loneliness
say alienation
say life making
say we are spoken for
say inherit
say mouthpain
say familial beyond mother
say collective genre shifting
say utterance
say claiming & all
say allegiance
say unallegiance
say goes on around and taking in
say explicit
say clear
say revolutionary voice
say invitation to form
iv.
keeping cannot the alone // edifice // imaginative interlocutor
diet constellations // as often //as conceived
utopian impulse // the remapping // reconstitutes the ordinary
everyday life // meaning // make disorder
layer & dialogue // & see // the hand arranging
letterwriting // conjuring opens // what if
presence // sufficiency // transit
I think of // you and you // are present
Sitting here we // socially arrange // or not
Scoops constitute // possible ways // out
Pieces // not intended // still I touch
Notation // made out of // devotion
Psychogeography // object not demotion // wander
Imaginary creates // a barrier // work around
Spreadable intimacy // + tractable // conductor cells
Also, deadly sentences // almost almost // flex spectrum
Fuel of nonsense // what’s // forfeited in unambiguity
Accreted space //one night stand // collective strangeness
Impossible correspondence // competing fantasies // who are you instrumentalist
Proximal object // into speech // leave a voicemail
v.
Touch of taking \
\
\ social inference I hear you say hands spread out
Assimilate the garbage \
\
\ Temporary upkeep of illusion—a parse-able life
Vantage point leaves wanting\
\
\ go beyond the decorative knowledge production
In naming, miss all other qualities \
\
\plant & manipulation, moments of disobedience
Want domination or perform domination \
\
\called into responsiveness
As if/we are/separate how/we talk/about ourselves \
\
\tending can be disruption, un/welcome
Mapping tactility in floral beyond with metaphysical drama\
\
\mutually cultivate visually land