"Central Park" by K. Iver
Central Park
Inside my lover’s mouth, I taste what I can’t touch, the Octobering of sycamores, the boulder tourists stand on for selfies, the choreography of kites. This is where desire begins: this pulse from lip to throat. I want you means my mouth wakes me up asking to close around you. Psychologists say oral fixation points to adult addiction. My addiction to lovers made adulthood possible. Loneliness will absolutely rot away teeth. My mouth has always known the stakes. In our hotel room, my lover leans over me, says open your mouth before he spits. The deep “p” sound of his lips–another command. Inside my cheeks, the first complete echo. My lover prods my lips down and sideways like a dentist. He tongues the surface of every tooth. He opens his vulva above my face, says suck, softly. I can't, not softly.
Photo Credit: Brook Opie
K. Iver was born in Mississippi. Their debut collection Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco won the Wisconsin Literary Award, was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Award, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and the Lambda Literary Awards, and was named a Best Book of 2023 by the New York Public Library. Iver has received fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the Sewanee Writers Conference, and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. They have a Ph.D. in Poetry from Florida State University. They are the Writer in Residence at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA.
Such a powerful poem, characteristically so. "Octobering of sycamores" is a felicity, as is "the choreography of kites" --- the phrase seeming verblike in its aliveness. And of course, the imagery that closes the poem, with all its palpable and forthright physicality. (I'll remember the spitting for a while!) An excellence from a poet whose voice I am privileged enough to have heard in person some time ago.
That ending 💀