Self–Portrait as NOPE

By Gretchen Rockwell

Self–Portrait as NOPE
after Jordan Peele

What’s a bad miracle ? The dictionary suggests
whatever is the opposite of wonder. Words so often
fail us. I would like for this to not be a bad miracle
but I can’t control what the eye sees, or who is watching.
I am the scream of a terrified horse, the winding down
of a record player, a blooded fist, something arching up
in unexpected motion. I am the observer & the observed,
an animal body trying to survive each night — alien
& new. There is no way to avoid being swallowed whole by
memory, nothing familiar to grasp as it pulls you down.
I tell myself: make something out of your ghosts. If you can
you’ll survive. Probably. The world around me is so wide, sky
open & ominous, the craggy mountains bracketing a place
where miracles — even bad ones — happen. Anything could be
up there waiting, & it is. We can find beauty in the body
& its rebecoming something strange & fierce, the unrippling
into billowing oscillations. I move towards what I fear
will change me as I try to capture this form for all to see.
Don’t look what I am in the eye. Or maybe, finally, do.