POEM: The Thinner Air

POEM: The Thinner Air

Apr 16

Written By Marni Fraser

The Thinner Air

I used to party impossible summers—

white-faced cliffs with money whispering,

harbors tucked behind unmarked stones,

no clicking cameras over cheap florals—

and sea-light turning rich boats into diamonds.

I was a made-up woman there, intact,

her laughter gilded by the hourglass,

pulse like a pearl shown in public.

Meanwhile the planet yawed off its pin—

some brutal dusk kept chewing through the minutes, fucking them raw—

and my thoughts rolled like a lone glass shooter—

circling my skull like fate without fingers.

Too many faces—each a little reminder.

Too many mouths that spewed their venom.

Others waited until the armor came off,

then skinned my candor for their hunger;

the world came through an electronic scroll—

news like ants across my nervous system,

entire nations making my shaking hands.

I blamed my ribs for the cages they built.

Anger was the weather I lived in—

then I swallowed it, let it burn, glad for it—

the heat went down like fired coals

and settled where my soft deaths were.

The pulse didn’t die, it darkened.

Something undid its mouth from my prayer.

What I wanted thinned like fog burned by sun:

wasn’t loss—but no longer desiring them—

the body flung off its old deals.

The wanting stopped its eating.

I saw desire as another voice,

throwing its mouth around love

that thinks its hunger is holy—

my thirst an altar of mirrors,

its sex forgetting its own hands,

devotion kneeling to anything staying.

So I stood a while and let the fever rearrange me.

I found a pleasure in waiting,

satiation in starving it into a line—

and the keys fell clean into my hands—

and the way opened,

and I let the void marry me—

open to its surprises,

not caring what I’d become.

Marni Fraser

0211.2026