The mummified body of Ötzi, “the Iceman” from the Copper Age was found in the Italian Alps in 1991.
So,
you will not
show me your
hands again,
how they cradle
a glass
of coffee.
Intimacy
burns a field
where no animals
live. Nothing
to save, you say
I say, how does it
escape you?
That core of a person
that gallon
that bog
that glacier.
As a child,
I gazed
at the pictures
of Ötzi,
his thin and leathered
arms, tattoos
at the wrists,
eyes both there
and not there.
I would never
touch
the body
but spent hours
at that kind of love.
Carbon
decays, so
do our words
and the fire in me
burns down.
This is not
where you want me.
The stars make
a brighter
appearance.
This is not
where you want me.
In the mountains
Ötzi set down
his weapons.
What do you see,
a betrayal?
Do not be afraid.
When I settled
my head on your shoulder
in a gallery
it was my body;
it was all I had.
Header photograph © Andrew Hall.
Hannah Larrabee is a poet, science-geek, and former Mainer who grew up on a blueberry farm. Her first full-length collection, Wonder Tissue, won the 2018 Airlie Press Prize. Her chapbook Murmuration (Seven Kitchens Press) is part of the Robin Becker Series for LGBTQ poets. She’s had work appear in: The Adirondack Review, Bomb Cyclone, Harpoon Review, Lambda Literary Spotlight, and elsewhere. Hannah was one of 22 artists selected by NASA to see the James Webb Space Telescope — her JWST poems were displayed at Goddard Space Center. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Hampshire.
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