flagging ambivalence
by Katie Brewer Ball (KBB)
Katie Brewer Ball (KBB), Untitled, digital photograph, 2026. Courtesy of the artist.
flagging ambivalence
Katie Brewer Ball (KBB)
SEPT/OCT 2026 | Issue 55
POETRY
Provincetown, MA
You two would def eff I told them in the bonfire night of this big top
behind a stone dog and a prairie rose
firm ground and distant giggles
it’s easy to recline
Have you ever fucked in a cemetery?
fallow till morning or at least the next life
too sleepy to be bothered
My conscious mind sucks
it’s all like what are we having for breakfast? and
did you even pack underwear
its all like I will keep you safe
its all like aren’t you glad you have a 401k?
underneath me in the small tomb
covered by stone clover and sheep’s-bit
the silence of the province lands
is where the action happens
I think you’d like me
down there
look through the open celtic cross a compulsive four leaf clover
ply myself into its shape
smell rosemary mosses
and false dandelion a tiny red rock for a baby that never died
if I never write a line break is that a kind of deferral?
whether the enjambment is a two-handed slap on the ass
or a soft channel like the herring wave
warm sand
the promise of sharks is sticky sweet &
just for today I will take pleasure
why speak anything to climax
my chiron is in leo
If I never write a line break maybe we can just keep it light
& Gertrude says there is no such thing as repetition
so insist me then spank me in a room of our own an east
village apartment where you spoon the water heater in the shower
where we eat duck eggs in the morning and squeal at night
A pattern isn’t bad a good beat will make me cum
sun distant now I dive backwards fall under the wave
make my body still so it pierces something and then learn to let go
lungs and feet a jangling bag of bones a pillar
of the clowning community
for how long am I supposed to hold my breath underwater
erratic is hot but exhausting
I never liked burning man
but I love the dead, every one of you
Katie Brewer Ball (KBB) is a creative writer and scholar living on Nonotuck land in Western Massachusetts. They are currently working on a hybrid fiction novel Please Don’t Forget which explores the relationships built through Arctic science on the North Slope of Alaska. Brewer Ball’s writing has appeared in publications including The Mass Review, Room Magazine, ASAP/Journal, Little Joe, Dirty Looks, and WSQ.