Javier Bateman
‘Cargo’ – Caitlin McGregor, 2023.
After C.T. Salazar
Noah says ‘God has given me this mission—
God commanded us.’ So, you board
and the Lord shut the door.
You wax and wane on deck, counting starlight,
counting moments, minutes, mediocracy.
Passing time by cataloguing all that he will not.
Two lions, two bears, two peacocks, two goats—
teeth.
Two lions meant two jaws which meant 60 teeth.
Bears, 42, 84.
Trying not to count the bodies that float to the surface
(though, if Noah asked, you’d have an answer).
You watch seagulls peck
the bloated corpse of the fishmonger’s daughter
and the Lord told Noah
‘I am going to destroy all flesh because the world is full of violence.’
You can concede she was full of violence
in the way most teenage girls are.
Too many tongues for one ship. Too many toes.
Gopherwood should not have this many pulses.
The deck rubs against your bare feet and pinches,
turning each toe into ten little heartbeats.
Noah is focused. Noah is stubborn.
Noah has not asked you how you feel,
has not held you as you swayed with the ship,
as you keened like a limp doe, crumpling in on itself.
Knuckles. Tails. Feathers. Claws. Venom. 60 teeth, 84.
This carcass of wood—
it will ruin you, you think.
To hear Javier read their poem ‘Cargo’, click below.
Javier Bateman (They/He) is a twenty four year old queer, chronically ill, trans-nonbinary academic and poet living on unceded Whadjuk Nyungar Boodjar. He has been published in Enby Life Journal, Blue Bottle Journal, Two Wolves Digest, as well as international journals. Javier’s poetry deals with diverse themes of grief, gender and gender identity, love, obsession and mythology. In his down time, Javier enjoys learning things on the job at Museum Boola Bardip and downtime with his gigantic cat.