STILL UNBUTTONED & UNBOTHERED: On Imagining That Freedom Probably Feels Like Getting the Itis

The table settles. Before you
is a series of well-seasoned scraps
framed in silverware and open
palms. The entire kitchen
exhales and every torso
leans back in unison, a table blossoming
bodies in satisfaction.
Someone pops open a button,
and then another. Several burps
that interrupt, scoff at the hand
cupped around the mouth,
bellow with pleasure
as they fling out of the body
in triumph. Every bra is undone
unceremoniously, straps wilting
out of shirt sleeves or across furniture.
The land of satiation. The land of, if it itches,
scratch it. Land of pleasure. Everything
sagging with joy. Someone passes gas
loudly. It is full and foul, but no one
is embarrassed by the scent
of a body that has gotten exactly
what it needed.

                                              The stench of enough.

My god, to be so satisfied you reek of it.
Smell badly of, I do not want more,
I have had my fill. To stink of gratitude,
to be immobilized by its weight. The eyelids
flutter, nearly drunk with it. Here, the body
so saturated and somehow fears
nothing. What a condition
for the body, so unlike
the state I am in. So enough
that all it must do
is sleep.

Copyright © 2021 by Jacqui Germain. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 13, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“Sometimes the idea of Black liberation feels so amorphous and distant and yet-to-be-shaped. I wanted to imagine a more concrete feeling to relate it to, something that would communicate the sensation without requiring too many logistics or any political jargon. I landed on the itis because it represents a particular kind of leisure post-feast—not just fullness, but to be so content, so transparently satisfied, to be so far away from any threat of scarcity or fear of violence that we could invite vulnerability back to our bodies again. One can indulge, unbutton, recline, pass gas, and let pleasure weigh the body down so much so that ‘all it must do / is sleep.’ I also picked the itis because it made me laugh.”
—Jacqui Germain