Back to Issue Forty-Seven

94Pu :: ¡ F L U X !
{i’m  a t  c a p a c i t y}

BY ROSEBUD BEN-ONI

 

Don’t call it returning. In all known timelines, the trinity
is Made. In America &. Heavy & thirsty for gravitational. Pulls &
drugstore transuranic, surely no. Rick. & Morty making like a tree, no
meddling without Doc & Marty (¡404 :: Eric. Stoltz glitch!), & nowhere near. Truth

or. Consequence, or Northern. Ireland’s bat-winged timecars that promised
to run. On refuse & some. Kind of wonderful I’m glad it was you, Michael J. Marty
McFox & your orange life vest & my mismatched socks, us two skaters hitchhiking

on sheer lightning, longing for a tower to strike. Where I’ve gone,
roads too took so much from my body & only rogues like us
could make Einstein disappear just
to bring him back, since no we all weren’t ready

but the kids, they

will ask why some music blitzed & seethed, burn

-ing endless shadows into unsuspecting streets.

 

85At :: Obsession You’re My—:: freak with me

BY ROSEBUD BEN-ONI

 

The most 80s! That ever (you want me to be) :: I vaporize instantly
if seen. Roll up your bills, ready razors, mirror & a. Key. Miserable
to make & a lot of hell to take, I’m. Rarest to. Arise. Naturally.
Get me cheap
motel. Pontiac Fiero & wads of fifty. 3 AM ATM Tuesday
morning. Your walk of shame, my. Runway. In a space
suit, ripped {who. DO.} mullet {WANT} jeans &. Nothing.
Gets betweenmy calvins & {:: me to be—:: } I’m the original Girls
Just Wanna, so. Many Desperately. Seeking. Identities. Call
me Alabamine, call me. Dakin. Scream Dorine,
gag me with Helvetium. Cause I should
be a child of 85, but it’s giving

wannabe isotopes & purely me
orbits only your naked dreams—

Rosebud Ben-Oni is the author of several collections, including If This Is the Age We End Discovery (March 2021), which won the Alice James Award and was a Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. In 2023, she received a Café Royal Cultural Foundation grant to write The Atomic Sonnets, a full length poetry collection based on her chapbook 20 Atomic Sonnets (Black Warrior Review, 2020. In 2017, her poem “Poet Wrestling with Angels in the Dark” was commissioned by the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in NYC. In 2022, Paramount commissioned her video essay “My Judaism is a Wild Unplace” for a nationwide campaign. In January 2023, she performed at Carnegie Hall on International Holocaust Memorial Day, and in Autumn 2023, her poem “When You Are the Arrow of Time” was commissioned by the Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust.

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