Kirsten Ihns

CINEMAS ON WHICH SOMETHING HAS BEEN

VIGOROUSLY BLOTTED OUT

the afternoon fills with girls

ass

in/of wonderland

of course this man’s a dad

a man sits back and is a dad

another

he brings a tiny blue the bluest bottle of shampoo

and sets it on the table

such ecstasy, i feel, disappearing into the architecture

the blue architectural blast comes over me

of that

io i know myself most in that blue foam

most helpless when i’m free

so i’m in the foam—

sun has its bone and sets

set free and wielded by no one

wielded :HUNT: and with tenacity

by a small woman, named Louise

Louise is a cinema on which something has been vigorously blotted out

conundrum, a Helen

Frankenthaler stain

where the blot is the point

of course this man is a dad

a man leans back and wears the room

ejact

too is a true form

the night film arrives in its papered box

in the vestibule to be cherished

unrolled in steps

and burned

ah, my porpoise!

so that man is a dad

he’s a ladder in his head

Kirsten (Kai) Ihns is a poet and filmmaker finishing up her PhD at UChicago, where she studies film and contemporary experimental poetics, and works as an editor. She wrote a book called sundaey (Propeller Books 2020), and a pamphlet published with the Earthbound Poetry Series (2022).