time is nothing but not amenable

our courting, like many a queer courtship, was undergirded by poetry. there was a moment of reading a poem while she was in the backseat of a car before we parted ways for a few days. after we started seeing each other, we would exchange texts in the days before we had established a label for one another, or even a regular and predictable rhythm, containing link after link. i like to tell myself that this is how it began: my fingertips deep in the words of elizabeth bishop, reading poem after poem about tending. these fingertips could not be on — or in — her. tap, tap, tap. cut. paste. send. it happened that one such poem by bishop was "the shampoo" [0]:

The still explosions on the rocks,

the lichens, grow

by spreading, gray, concentric shocks.

They have arranged

to meet the rings around the moon, although

within our memories they have not changed.

And since the heavens will attend

as long on us,

you've been, dear friend,

precipitate and pragmatical;

and look what happens. For Time is

nothing if not amenable.

The shooting stars in your black hair

in bright formation

are flocking where,

so straight, so soon?

• Come, let me wash it in this big tin basin,

battered and shiny like the moon.

stephanie burt [1] notes that bishop wrote this poem as a love poem for lota de macedo soares, her partner during most of her time living in brazil. arguing that bishop is breaking with he tradition of love poems given that "she writes of the ongoing, the potentially sustainable." rather than it being a heroic, romantic, or erotic spike, burt continues:

[Bishop's] emotional exertions are not revolutionary efforts or capital outlays but operating expenses, to be kept up as long as a structure stands. Lovers in "The Shampoo" wash each other's hair not only once but regularly, once a month when the moon is full. (139)

somehow, this caught both of our eyes. before i could fully digest what we were doing, i had a calendar appointment on the next full moon. she told me she was going to wash and braid my hair. i felt my body quiver. it's become a ritual in its own right since then, and something i hold dear, and protect. either i go to her apartment, or she comes to mine. sometimes, in special enough moments, she will prepare a meal for me as well.

on the last full moon, we began by eating the dinner she prepared for us: gluten free tagliatelle and tomato sauce with meatballs. after, she drew me a hot bath. after i eased myself in, she began washing my hair slowly, gently, patiently. the shampoo she used brought a bright tingle to my scalp. as i felt her fingers massage my head and move through strand after strand, i let go, breaking down into a heavy, halting sob. my strength did not matter for a change. i did not need to be a calming and powerful presence. just the same, the tears returned when she braided my hair. i felt safe from the insistent tugging she undertook. moreover, i was given high praise for my beauty.

she, too, earned something special as a reward for undertaking a rather obnoxious task she'd been avoiding. we'd decided on an impact session in advance. at her request, i brought a specific, albeit utilitarian, implement along with me. we re-established our guidelines and began with calibration strokes. each moment i raised my arm to deliver a blow, a deep calm pervaded my muscles. i watched her writhe beneath me when the strokes landed and felt peace and satisfaction. at some point, she asked for me to exert more control over her orgasm, using impact as both the proverbial carrot and stick. when she finally came, she, too, settled into a deep release of tears and emotion. i held her close and touched her hair, telling her how proud of her i was and how happy she made me.

since this last full moon, i haven't been able to stop thinking about the gentle unmooring from reality that occurred. time had stopped for both of us at the beginning of the evening, and it allowed us, on some levels, to simply be present with one another, and to tend to each other in beautiful yet irregular ways. again, i thought of elizabeth bishop and lota de macedo soares, washing each other's hair. stephanie burt describes this mutual tending-to as a form of "transitive attention" (as described by lucy alford) that existed in spite of soares' professional obligations:

This kind of attention might situate Bishop and her lovers (perhaps not only Soares) in a kind of queer time, characterized by a struggle to keep going, to support lovers and allies against the demands for production, expansion, new relationships, and roles defined by cishet stereotypes. This kind of lesbian time is about upkeep and mutual support, even a characteristically lesbian vision of homeostatic (balanced but changing) community upkeep. (140-141)

through our evening, through our ritual, we mark time differently and lovingly. we keep the tending and sustaining predictable yet allow ourselves to exist in a space where the clock can otherwise fade away. this gives us the space we need to show up to care for one another, and for the rest of the world. it is not just this tending-to that is the ritual: for it to be complete, we also the need the switch to happen. power must be exchanged, permission must be granted. through this, we are tempering a structure itself built and maintaned by these processes of co-creation. time is nothing if not amenable.

=> [0] elizabeth bishop, "the shampoo" | [1] stephanie burt, "elizabeth bishop's maintenance art", contemporary literature 64(2), 2023

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posted 2025-01-19
tags: kink, community, care, poetry
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