ANNAKA SAARI
Mansley’s Making
After Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant
Tell me how it felt
to strike the Earth
in pieces, to feel
each limb and lobe
and ligament
bounce across the
land’s barren back.
Did you like it? The
freedom and pain of
it all? The sudden stop?
How strange it must
be - reduced to several
where one once stood -
like heads of chickens
lying slackjawed on the
slaughterhouse floor or
shards of glass painting
a vase’s ghost or the
jagged tooth of a shark
sunken in the deep or the
pages of letters that
managed to survive
the fire Sylvia set
in the wastebasket.
In Rockwell the children
gather screws in the
field where the giant
once stood - what at
the time seemed
insurmountable now fits
into a new generation’s
small, curmudgeonly palms.
I sit, waiting.
Soon the man will put
himself back together.
After Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant
Tell me how it felt
to strike the Earth
in pieces, to feel
each limb and lobe
and ligament
bounce across the
land’s barren back.
Did you like it? The
freedom and pain of
it all? The sudden stop?
How strange it must
be - reduced to several
where one once stood -
like heads of chickens
lying slackjawed on the
slaughterhouse floor or
shards of glass painting
a vase’s ghost or the
jagged tooth of a shark
sunken in the deep or the
pages of letters that
managed to survive
the fire Sylvia set
in the wastebasket.
In Rockwell the children
gather screws in the
field where the giant
once stood - what at
the time seemed
insurmountable now fits
into a new generation’s
small, curmudgeonly palms.
I sit, waiting.
Soon the man will put
himself back together.
Would You Stay With Me Tonight?
After Both Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
and Seaholm’s “Black Vans”
Remember when the insanity felt
like spontaneity and you and I sat
on the couch watching cartoons
and our favorite movies until we
couldn’t stand to keep our hands
off each other any longer and the
ice on our backs felt like the most
delicate mattress ever created.
Remember the blanket forts and
bookstores and the way I drowned
my blonde in blue ruin and turned
your brain inside out before I
turned this sun-fucked daydream
into a vodka-drenched nightmare
before you tried to bend me into
a key before we met for the
second time before the envy and
screaming and kitchen fights.
Remember the way my tongue
felt on your neck and the lace
of my bra felt under your finger
and the feeling in your chest
when I told you I loved you for
the first time. Remember the
couch and how good it felt when
I jumped on top of you and the
sweet of the diner-seat leather and
the wind in my hair on the beach.
The oversized t-shirts the
underwear cast to the floor the
bike you rode when you were a
child the shrill of your mother’s
voice your lips on my lips on my
stomach on my tongue the way
it all began the high before Hell.
Remember. For us. For me. For
you. I would burn every tepid cell
of my body to discover it all again.
Would you stay with me tonight,
stranger? I’ll the rest for you later.
After Both Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
and Seaholm’s “Black Vans”
Remember when the insanity felt
like spontaneity and you and I sat
on the couch watching cartoons
and our favorite movies until we
couldn’t stand to keep our hands
off each other any longer and the
ice on our backs felt like the most
delicate mattress ever created.
Remember the blanket forts and
bookstores and the way I drowned
my blonde in blue ruin and turned
your brain inside out before I
turned this sun-fucked daydream
into a vodka-drenched nightmare
before you tried to bend me into
a key before we met for the
second time before the envy and
screaming and kitchen fights.
Remember the way my tongue
felt on your neck and the lace
of my bra felt under your finger
and the feeling in your chest
when I told you I loved you for
the first time. Remember the
couch and how good it felt when
I jumped on top of you and the
sweet of the diner-seat leather and
the wind in my hair on the beach.
The oversized t-shirts the
underwear cast to the floor the
bike you rode when you were a
child the shrill of your mother’s
voice your lips on my lips on my
stomach on my tongue the way
it all began the high before Hell.
Remember. For us. For me. For
you. I would burn every tepid cell
of my body to discover it all again.
Would you stay with me tonight,
stranger? I’ll the rest for you later.
Annaka Saari is a 20 year old poet from Jackson, Michigan. Currently, she resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan where she studies English at the University of Michigan, and spends her free time watching cartoons. Her work has previously appeared in Ghost City Review and MICRO // MACRO. You can learn more about her at https://annakasaariwrites.wordpress.com/ or follow her on Twitter at @AnnakaSaari.