Poetry: “Inevitabilities, and” by Christina Connerton
Christina Connerton’s poem is a master class in the power of a title to give readers the keys to unlock a poem’s insights. By prescribing (quite literally “writing before”) meaning to the parts of the poem before each comma plus “and,” the feeling of inevitability carries through each statement. Along with that, the majority of the lines start with a subject and verb pattern: “I killed,” “I keep,” “I still don’t.” What becomes more intriguing, then, is the line that begins with something different– with “maybe.” Both the stroke and the father’s lack of keeping hands to himself are more up in the air, less inevitable, which leads us to align as readers with the speakers disbelief in karma.
Read Connerton’s poem below.
Inevitabilities, and
I killed fifteen fruit flies by the window on the day I found out you were dying,
and
I’ve been writing a screenplay about a girl who kills her father,
and
I keep looking down at my hands in case they’re frozen too,
and
maybe if you’d had the stroke thirty years ago you’d have kept them to yourself,
and
I still don’t believe in karma,
and
I still won’t come to your grave.
Christina Connerton
Christina Connerton is a disabled copywriter, screenwriter, and poet based in Los Angeles with previously published works in the Eunoia Review. Her poetry explores all that contributes to her chronic illness, whether that be politics or trauma, her mitochondria or the stars. She has a particular affinity for unpacking her internalized ableism and critiquing it in the world at large—especially from the epicenter of Wellness Culture, USA, (Los Angeles)—and has a Substack called The Wayside Times that further delves into this topic.
