‘Amphibious’

Lizzie Falvey is an artist and professor from Boston, Massachusetts. Her photographs, videos, ceramics, and monoprints have been shown in galleries across New England. She takes photos on an old Nikon film camera and enjoys capturing images that evoke a sense of the vastness of time and geographical space.

Amphibious

…borrowed from Greek amphibious, "living a double life"…-Merriam-Webster

i.

Salamanders regenerate limbs and tissue

Without scarring

& afterwards no one questions

What they learned

The trauma unapparent

ii.

I ain't quite ready for war

Two years from retirement

Our garden needs tending

& my parents are getting old

I am getting old

But when they set fire to the world

To burn us out, we'll scatter

Submerge just beneath the surface

& gather like we do

Until it's time

For sons of mothers who were sons

& asphalt heroes turn

As one to face the hounds

Match them tooth

For bloody tooth

& we know our bodies might betray us

Forget to breathe

Enough of us remember

There are other ways

To survive

Ghosts of the good queer

Poets sing

We are divine, molecular

& hate has no power

Past our skin

iii.

None of us will know them

Who come next

But we know

They will continue

As if we never left

Jason Clemmons is a Tar Heel poet and long-time university administrator with works appearing in several publications, such as Slippery Elm, Havik, and Fifth Wheel Press. His writing reflects his experience as a gay man in the US South, often touching on themes of memory, family, and resiliency. Jason lives in central North Carolina with his husband, Peter.