A Poem by Nina Power

"manodestra" by Nina Power

“manodestra”

I don’t know how you managed to tether
This nothing 
This lack
Tie a knot in this swollen emptiness
And write your name over and over again
On the underside
Of these ridges

Handwriting so beautiful
For such rough hands

I think of Diana telling me
Why penises look like that
To displace the semen of other men

But what other men?

Men fuck you faster and harder
If they think there is a rival

Because everything is a war
Everything
Everything
Even between me and you
Between you and yourself 
Me and myself
Between wanting this tether and
Feeling its sadness

But aren’t we modern now

This deep, depthless, pull
Yanking me
Then you seared your name
Over the writing
And all the letters are illuminated

And it is instantaneous
When I think of you
Your name
These words, 
hey hey 
greedy
I like it when you beg

Involuntary memory 
The twitch
The cake in the tea
The sign in the mind
The dull ache turning pictures of trees into real trees 

This hearth, this fire
This whore-soothing
This truth-telling

Samsaric
This weight
There is no exit 
cutting, unpicking, untying
The opposite direction
How wise do you expect me to be

I am on the side of life

To take you in
exquisite

mano destra 
your fucking paw
tugging at the side of my cheap pants with a hole in them
the practiced gesture
of the man who enjoys 
saving images for later

and I send you 
pictures
sounds
images 
poems
stories
words
for now

‘you are like an advert for yourself’
a line from my old book
But I have nothing to offer you
And you don’t need it

And one way everything is mean
The other way, the sun gives us too much
The right hand and the left

And once you decide not to die
Everything is excess

I say your name to no one, sex magic!
and I cry, the ceremony
and when you are here
this moment of resistance
the body’s last joke
to make you come faster, no doubt 
to make you want to give in
because I have already submitted
and 

And I don’t care if this is a bad idea
I can do what I want
Only if others let you
And what about them
We are all adults

And what are they, exactly
The freedom to fail, to fall, in fragments

And what can I lose
That I have not already
And I can look after myself

I already do

And when I tumble 
circus act collapse 
let it be onto grass 
not stone
green not grey

Nina Power is a philosopher and a poet from the UK. Her most recent book, What do Men Want? Masculinity and its Discontents, is available now.

Illustration by Adam Lehrer