Tunnels

'Each movement of respiration encodes terror.' - Stacy Doris

\

Muscle tunnel locomotive round, inmates held

at psychiatric institutions

Martín Ramírez sings rip-like architectures of invasion invagination

holey fantasy scene in the mountain’s side Jesus’ wound

lay your finger here Thomas does as he is bidden

Thomasina runs for the hills

\ \ \

Underwater cave.

Mask sound. Breath

beat. Cave snake

beneath earth, stone

slick with underwater

aquifer teaser testers

held at bay but glide

right into the next nest,

one hollow beneath

swallows of giant

gullet, vocal chords

tight against neoprene

black

\

Dinosaur bone sticks out of desert cave wall high up

in the dry. Silicate old clay body sedimented fern.

Skin bird balances on hot wind. Giant stalagmites

bite into swampy dry sun parch heat death dinosaur

rattle roar tongue sail breath dust fall decay I salt

you here I bless you here I compress you here till

you reach up in wide arc

jubilation

\\

The train comes round the mountain spews a cigar is not a cigar my muscles anchor themselves on bio-bones that stamp me a woman osteoporosis work jumps up jumps up jumps strength

cunt into elephant’s maw penile tusks

the lioness’ bloody fur clumps matted dirty to the ochre ground

\ \

Breathing apparatus

bangs noisily yank

clank funk till it stops.

Caught lengthwise,

anchored. Muscles

seize with ceiling at nose.

Beneath the axle

sharp arrowtips fillet

skin fat cushion. Sight

blurs red and silt and

silt caught in fin swirl.

Stuck.

\\

Shark senses blood ampullae cruises into cave bung hole

fin delicacy convulses impale scar tumor tail and upper

fin stick out of sand till time falls away skeleton time

drip a mantle moan of liquid alabaster soapy skin.

Cave breath vibrates animate

holes in the universe

\\\

Fire scars pink into her flank she screams tunnel fills with water till it

pops teeth strain out plant matter and old silt

Explodes downward, hummingbird diaphragm

lily-stems in the blood pool

blossom heavy ovary

\\\

Shallow breath louder

in the inner ear,

orchestra corpuscles

beat it beat it. Flippers

still. Neoprene shifts

slightly with

movement side to

side. Rock clasps

harder as lung refuses

to let go.

\\\

She falls apart, memory of her, silk skin water hole

wedding dance, heavy pink feathers. Lake water

open, cool, each sucking wave. Deck dance against

desert dry alkaline water hole. Flames up, petrol

blue a hot suck

gone.

\\\\

Ball drops tunnel takes glottal stop all the way

to bottom impact wave silver

ball bearing high arc

moon-wise Luna moth night call

bounces echo cone

\\\\\\\\\\

The next breath.

Bubbles in the

aqueous humor of

your eye, death’s

sequins, mermaid

companion animals

sprint across retina,

reflex shutter, Morse

code SOS.

\\\\

She rattles hollow spirit anchor

arms wide. Low quake tsunami

fire press granite grind bones

contort till they flare rips into

cathedral ship. In the dry, dust

falls moth peacock scales.

Flame out giant turtle.

Farewell cave bear.

\\\\\

\ \To source. \

\ \Stilled. \

\ \Perfume molecules perform

memory leaps. \

\

The nuggets of Tunnel's three interwoven strands emerged in an Amoeba Dance session I led in Turtle Disco. We use sounds to tunnel through our bodies, listen to the echoes and waves that travel through us, and eventually distill these signals into writing.

Petra Kuppers is a disability culture activist, a community performance artist, a Professor at the University of Michigan and an advisor on Goddard College’s MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts. She leads The Olimpias, an international disability performance research collective. Her academic books engage disability performance; medicine and contemporary arts; somatics and writing; and community performance. She is also the author of a dark fantasy collection, Ice Bar (2018). Her most recent poetry collection is the ecosomatic Gut Botany (2020). She lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where she co-creates Turtle Disco, a somatic writing space, with her wife and collaborator, Stephanie Heit. Petra is a Black Earth Institute fellow.