Two Poems by Kale Hensley

art by Isabelle Carasso

Scientists Mapped the Shape of a Supernova for the First Time; It’s Not What We Expected

for Cecilia Payne

To be whole is to be round, unless you are fat or pregnant,

then paradoxically you become a half citizen–later, oh perhaps

 

we can get into that. I promised you the stars in this poem

and you fell into my lap, dream-strung and doe-eyed, hoping

 

for a glimpse of the beyond. I cannot tell you how, but yes

I knew somehow it would all rut out like this, not as a sphere

 

but a wound, an olive, they said; the supernova strives not

for perfection but for a clit startlingly cosmic, an oval radiant

 

in its divine mutilation. My perspective, I can confess, may

be grossly Christian, not gross as in whole but as in not many

 

would want to be nibbling the Christ’s side with a pair of

naive lips, engrossed so down to the bones, like the poor girls

 

of radium. It would be a woman too, who told us of what

stars consisted from her studies of the night, from measuring

 

the tendencies of light and ink, unlike Earth she found, yes,

stars were a dance of just two elements and heavier ingredients

 

here and there, oh, how heavy was your stare–best it would

be for me to forget it, yes but like astronomers I learned prisms

 

were worth the weight in one’s hand, to stutter all the colors

of a situation. What a word that is, abundant, catastrophic, shaped

 

like every yes that left my lips; the stars, yes, take me back

to them, back to the olive, the tenor of your skin; see how cleaved

 

I live! Once, I could believe in perfect ends. The slickening

of a matchstick, the star held firmly in God’s lips, but this flesh knows

 

smoke, knows loosen, knows a girl extinguished in touches

so reckless. I have the memory of once a tail; I was made to swallow it.

 

 

 

Ode to the Club Girl I Used to Be (And Maybe Still Am)

for Katie Judy

How I used to fashion these legs! Fish nets, handgrown
            sequins, dark hairs above or below the knee depending if
somebody was worthy enough to take a peek. Not a lick

of sense, but tin ankles rolled on Pleasant St. bridges, hang-
            overs where I could not recall the bruises but the grasses
dew-tipped where I laid to soothe them, when I prayed for

shivers to clink like coins atop these hips. And oh, those
            accomplices, tight-lipped friends and strangers with tongues
reminiscent; twirls with boys named after spices, makeouts

with the dolls that grew spurts of larkspur on our checker-
            board dance floor; did you know inside a cage a girl can grow
a pair of wings? But I preferred the clipping, for it made

room inside the photo booths so pals could pile up in my lap
            and we could capture the tender intentions of glitter, mind-
ful smears of glosses or liners. The dollar bills were an easy

sacrifice; please take George Washington from my lips once
            you finish your set, I wanna see splits how God intended, I
know how far a leg can stretch–I know if we share the fur-

coat, it’ll make waiting for this 2 am hotdog worth it. We did
            what we did–I still don’t know where that one pair of panty
hose went! Maybe they’re still swirling in the toilet or my heart

            which too must be long-limbed; how does it still remember
every ache and lyric, every Advil downed with iced coffee: yes,
            the morning after was the best, when in our club clothes we ate
sausage biscuits, agreed it doesn’t count if we share the cigarette.

 

 

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