CALL ME

Hana Kim, United States

Note about the piece: This piece is a black-out poem from Moby Dick that interprets Ishmael as trans through the gaps in language and literature. It's divided into 6 parts and is chronologically taken from the book.

1. call me

call me _ _ _ _ _ _ _,

I find myself growing in my soul

water-gazers: thousands of mortal men

and water are wedded for ever.

every boy with a soul in him go to sea,

plunged in rivers and oceans.

I confess when I go to sea

I always go as a man.

I put down performing the part I did,

and welcome my inmost soul.

2. house / body

a queer sort of place, leaning over sadly

this body of mine.

what a pity they didn’t improve my own coals.

the artist’s design of my now body of a man

cut through round beams and craft cock.

projecting a jaw, a man.

this house, I afford a boy.

3. queer queequeg

the ‘dark complexioned’ harpooner and

man interested me at once.

the sea-gods ordained he should become my shipmate,

a sleeping-partner.

height, shoulders, and a chest I have seldom of.

private unknown stranger,

I ponder over sleeping with him.

good heavens! what a face!

it was the truth of falling, I concluded.

I am no coward but I confess I live

as a queer

man, human just as him.

4. ablutions

Queegqeug and I blended together:

naught but death should part us twain,

his stiff staff, I his bedfellow pleased.

I was a creature in transition,

he the best and proud. I, his greatest

admirer.

5. guilt

congregation of broken men:

JOHN TALBOT was erect, ROBERT LONG

ground in EZEKIEL HARDY

killed by Sperm.

what despair -- the same fate may be thine.

my body is but the lees of my better being.

my body is not me. But,

the Father said, “this sin, this

disobedience; to obey God

we must disobey ourselves.”

but Queequeg, a man,

I cannibalistically take.

6. transition

strange the ship the sea

myself weaving the Fates.

a sound so strange, “there! there She

is!” an odd sort of humorist, as I am a

man. queer and strange man.

I lived after resurrection, I survived myself,

my death locked up in the vault.

Hana Kim is a midwestern writer/editor who is desperately trying to find a job. they think too much about the social network. Find them on Twitter @hanakix.