Quandaries

i. The Clearing

at the edge of a forest

seen from above, say
from an airplane, looks

like the back of this

man’s neck, the fine
hairline, a young man

who sits with his back

to me as I destroy
the heart-shape on top

of the cortado or

rather as I assert
a metaphor.

ii. Protrusions

draw attention to them-

selves and sometimes
out of context they’re

spectacles. For example:

a cactus arm on the floor
or antlers on the wall.

I can’t not look, and

sometimes I make men
uncomfortable. Leaps are

protrusions and pronouns

too. For example: a star-
fish arm fell off and she

grew back. Perhaps this

is why he can’t give up
cafés. Why I can’t stop

ordering cortados.

Kevin McLellan is the author of in other words you/ (winner of the 2022 Hilary Tham Capital Collection selected by Timothy Liu), Ornitheology (Massachusetts Book Awards recipient), Tributary, Round Trip and the book objects Hemispheres and [box] which reside in several special collections including the Blue Star Collection at Harvard University. He makes videos under the name Duck Hunting with the Grammarian which won Best Short Form Short at the LGBTQ+ Los Angeles Film Festival. It also was shown at the Flickers’ Rhode Island Film Festival, Berlin Short Film Festival, the Vancouver Queer Film Festival and others. Kevin lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. https://kevmclellan.com/