a.Monti
organs for grasping
potent sky of the longest night
hovering above cold concrete like organs
made to collide winter
i worked for her cellular money
and woke up with a sock that was not mine
and woke up with a day that was not mine
i never meant to find myself in such a cold place
i never meant to
Then a pause, a knock
there was something
else i needed to remember
O
What happened if i held it loose
what happened if i looked
on the other side
of clay, there was touch
______
waves were smashing the shore, later someone would claim
mountains flew into the house, those five words, mountains
flew into the house,
i paused and there you were amongst the paintings
like you had always been, lilac horizon playing darts with sun
at the doorstep
A shore goodbye
A site of chewing the formerly unwiedly blob of reality
an eager cherry blossom tree wraps the sock around my throat
and says what you meant to do was
this ______ i take up space in the precision of my breath
horizon line, i took your muscle into myself and
found that self was an unfurling, that it could be warm
doorsteps were circling all around us while the neighbourhood stood perfectly still and witnessed
my brush stroke thicken and throb on my tongue
that is when i said to you, horizon
i am nothing but here and O _____
and the sun said: let the light in
Despite the wind we counted
Let the light in
to discover heat
inside every
day and
O _____
it’s yours
it’s you
On a good day
life and death are lovers
meet each other
with liquid affection across lines of
ceaseless mutation and doubling, eating and sharing
i saw you, horizon, in a dream
before we met, and wind knows
you still have all the time in the world for this
horizon is the only one you’ll ever have
cream
Sugar mammal, slit throat
Infinitely tender in your cadence
Telling people you love them
Selling them ice cream
Holding their hands on an airplane
Forgetting you’re not in Heaven
Then forgetting you’re in Heaven
Then forgetting nothing
Remembering it all
Forgetting this is what heaven feels like
Like a manageable sucking
Gentle
August
I gave pleasure to paintings 30.000 years ago
I am etching “here” into my lover’s language, Here, I was here,
her body changes the lines
Here
May
The social depends on more or less convenient agreements of how to measure space and time
Lines are created as an effect of the repetition of certain walks and expressions
Laugh lines, furrows through the fore
head Here
Here Here
Well walked upon forest paths
But the paradox of the footprint is that lines are both created by being follwed and followed by being created
June
don't disappear
into my lips April
It is by following some lines more than others that we acquire a sense of who we are
July
Yesterday we sold out of pistachio, cookies and cream, matcha, earl grey lavender
Body orients towards person with strands of curly, grey hair. i ask: waffle or wavers she says she
hasn’t had wavers in fifteen years, procedes to call the moment “prustian.” i have no idea what she is
saying, respond “prustian ice cream temporalities,” she laughs approvingly, the line behind her is
getting long, what would it be like to lick, where the ice cream goes it drip drops onto her collar
bones her neck her fingertips i’d like to suck them gently make her giggle quick and sticky it is a 100
degrees, she says, whats your name on venmo, i want to tip you i say theres a tip jar righ there, she
says, but your name, i say yes
yes
yes
three more times Here it smells good down Here would you like a sample
Sugar mammal, open throat
Tethered to the thickest part
Life is full of far and close most of all
it’s the breezy stuff that keeps me Here
Amanda Monti is a trans-disciplinary poet and translator based between Berlin and New York City. Projects alternate between performance, pedagogy, sound and collaboration. Their poetics are currently devoted to vowel sounds and wormholes. Amanda's poetry collection Mycelial Person (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2021) has been adapted for radio as SporeRadical at Montez Press Radio. More work can be found through the ICA London, The Poetry Project, McSweeney’s, ExBerliner, Cuntemporary and The Offing, amongst others.
Get in touch through their website: https://softie.space