Artwork © Ira Joel Haber

 

My Queer Funeral

My funeral was a classic road trip, with the all-American dog, children’s arms and legs outside the car, my shadow, a ghost girl, a mere reflection of a girl I once knew, raced down the highway to Joni Mitchell’s album Blue. Blue like I was. At my funeral, I needed my body rolled up to fit in a dark wooden box in the back seat of the Toyota. Breasts rolled to fit in a pair of size zero jeans, the salt crisp on the tip of my tongue. Gifted at love making, indirect contact with my bits and bobs. I turned the leaves, peeling away the brown, the orange. At my funeral, my regret quoted, not enough sex: on top of an airplane, in the dirt under the church, on the ceiling of the subway platform. I lived my life second by second. I did what I had to: brush teeth, butter toast, kiss my husband goodbye. Dead grandma quoted at the funeral: the carnal urge for penetration, a sin. I turned pain into a how to guide, I was quoted: what women were taught about sex. I craved breast shaped pasta. I fucked with grief, classic car at the ledge, white knuckles spread on the wheel, Bitch I’m Here etched into my two front teeth. I fucking rock. I’m the fucking shit. Let’s just fuck.

 
 
Zoë Vorisek is a poet from New York City and is an undergraduate student at Harvard. Her poetry centers around her experiences working as an Emergency Medical Technician during the height of the pandemic, her battle with bipolar disorder, and her exploration of sexuality. Being dyslexic herself, she advocates for children with learning disabilities.

Ira Joel Haber was born and lives in Brooklyn. He is a sculptor, painter, writer, book dealer, photographer and teacher. His work has been seen in numerous group shows both in the USA and Europe and he has had nine one man shows including several retrospectives of his sculpture. His work is in the collections of The Whitney Museum Of American Art, New York University, The Guggenheim Museum, The Hirshhorn Museum,The Albright-Knox Art Gallery & The Allen Memorial Art Museum. Since 2006 His paintings, drawings, photographs and collages have been published in over 300 online and print magazines. He has received three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, two Creative Artists Public Service Grant (CAPS) two Pollock-Krasner grants, two Adolph Gottlieb Foundation grants and, in 2010, he received a grant from Artists’ Fellowship Inc. in 2017 & 2018 he received the Brooklyn Arts Council SU-CASA artist-in-residence grant.