Gargoyle

“Gargoyle” by JC Andrews is the first runner-up of the 2024 Sappho Prize for Women Poets, selected by Megan Fernandes. We’re honored to share this riveting poem with you.

Queerness as a utopian formation is a formation based on an economy of desire and desiring. This desire is always directed at that thing that is not yet here, objects and moments that burn with anticipation and promise.
—José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity

The precise screws
——locked in the sky
———–glitter and make
the fragments inside
——of me pull together
———–and touch briefly.
I am a child, and no
—part of my life
———–is insignificant.
I think of you. When
—my mother is rocking
———-back and forth
in her bedroom, I run out
—-into the ditch where
————the yellow flowers lay
down. I ask you to marry
—me there and pretend
———-my name is Joshua.
The flowers bang against
—one another like little
———-bells with nothing inside
of them. In the wind,
—they sound how train tracks
———–feel. I have a dream
over and over from
—twenty-four on where
———–my mother is spread out
on my great-grandmother’s
—table. When I am nine,
———–I go to school in wet
panties and dry them
—on the swing while I
———–close my eyes. A girl
who likes horses hides
—beads under the jungle gym,
———–and I find them, and she
is you, except she is not,
—though. I want her to put
———–her head on my chest,
but she won’t. The table
—–is yellow with blue stars.
———–Where the flowers are,
the sunlight sticks
—to the ground and goes
———–on forever. I could
follow it, but I am scared.
—In the dream, my mother
———-is grabbing her chest
and saying my name
—in a voice that locks
———–me up. Behind the house,
my grandmother puts
—a doorknob in the chicken coop
————to trick the snakes.
When they swallow it,
—she cuts them at the lump.
———–I watch and remember
you will one day come
—when I am no longer
———-twelve and full
of secrets. I look over
—my mother’s shoulder and see
————-my great-grandmother’s
face. The flowers run
—all the way to the dog pen,
———-and they tick against
my shins as I walk.
—My mother is rocking.
———–The yellow flowers
tick. The same time. The same
—time. I miss you.
———-In the dream,
my great-grandmother
—is hunkered down under
———-a set of wings and staring
at me from the doorway
—of the closet in the kitchen.
———–I can’t tell if she’s
protecting what’s inside
—or just trapped. It’s dark.
———–I believed in you
before I knew you could
—exist, but then, I get to
———do that with everything.