"My Agrarian Days" by Honor Zetzer

a poem

I rise. The first thing I'll see is these hands
Reaching.
Today I am milking the cow.
Her name is Modernity, and she sleeps with the bull,
Shitting on the lame soldiers of Ulster.

In these, my agrarian days,
I live in the present.
The present is a gift. 
I call this the present present. 
For this, I am kneeling
Ankles folded and Goldilocks pigtails.
Praying in brought-to-you-by-Ulta-Beauty drawn on freckles. 
Sending paid subscriptions to heaven’s doorstep
For my seventh favorite deity. 
Forget me not. I have no eternity. 

The present present was packaged and waiting
One day on the table. Bought by my breadwinning tradwife. 
Retro fashions made in frail plastic fabrics
And AI genmoji braided horse tail swatting flies. 
Just past Row there’s desolation river topped in 
Billboards, pictures of forest resorts. 
These hands, always reaching.
These arms, hold the boundary. 
The present present is this old belt factory where sweet music rolls flat in the gears. 

I am milking the cow of modernity. 
Sucking straight on the udder like they said like I should. 
Since the spell only works when the milk is newborn
And the brim of beginning makes infinite. 
Silk, synthetic, pixels, and 
Lines all tucked in my parcel. 
All night, baby, stay up with me to watch the sun rise. 
Baby, dry eyes and pinpoint pupils and 
These circle jerking threads and 
This clever senseless synthesis and
The blue light of the angels 
So I know, I am God. 

The present present is the best high anyone could ever find.
From the grounded 
Prairies I rise.

These are my agrarian days.

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BIO:

Honor Zetzer is a writer and artist in Los Angeles, and curator of the reading series The Vermicult.