beam
first quarter.
My snakejawed sternum finally unhinges when this world lets it breathe, and I am following that violet lazer from bar to bar, steadfast and gleaming in its absurdity, the way a kid in the backseat follows the yellow moon. You’d come crane your neck in parallel play with me, if you knew what’s good for you.
ii.
Have you ever seen Sacramento so alive? Have you ever seen a city drive themselves so nuts over almost?
iii.
It’s beautiful you all make do with so little, some out-of-towner smirk-hisses from the side of their mouth, shoots from the hip, enunciates in that Peninsula way while I gnaw at my stone fruit, teething, tertiary, unrelenting. Maybe I take it personally because I bought Maldon salt with my food stamps, or because I was nine the last time they made it to the championships, and now the bar where I’m trying to watch the game at won’t even card me. Maybe I’m starved in a way I stopped noticing, something like a demonym, something like a sneak peek at the DSM-6. I have half a degree in anthropology–I know what it looks like when something is built with bones meant to chase.
iv.
I was taught right–my fastness and looseness goes a long way, but it sure as shit doesn’t spread to the way I use the word “we.” But I am making my own mythology. I sleep to dream, and I will dream until it ruins me.
Romy Rhoads Ewing
Romy Rhoads Ewing (she/they) is a writer and photographer from Sacramento, California. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in HAD, Querencia Press, Nowhere Girl Collective, Anti-Heroin Chic, Major 7th Magazine, persephone’s fruit, UC Davis’s Open Ceilings Magazine, and Genrepunk Magazine. Her debut chapbook, please stay, was published by Bottlecap Press in 2024. They received their Bachelor of Arts in Child Development from Sacramento State University and also hold an Associate of Arts in Anthropology. She is currently studying Japanese. Romy, their work, and further information can be found online at www.romyrhoadsewing.xyz.
Why Taylor loved it:
Okay, I mean holy shit. This poem is so smart in so many ways. The four quarters of a basketball game, (I think it's about basketball?) The way a city and its humans go a bit crazy when winning and losing is on the line. It's just fantastic and captures that essence which is something I really understand as an ex-athlete.
I'm also SO enamored with the sound work here. The attention to language is stunning. Like in lines "stone fruit, teething, tertiary, unrelenting. Maybe I take it personally because I bought Maldon salt with my food stamps," just look at the T sounds you packed in there! Genius!
And then, that killer line at the end of stanza iii. The heart of the poem is there beating in all its glory.
Interview:
There's a line in here that I haven't stopped thinking about. You write: "I know what it looks like when something is built with bones meant to chase." Talk to me about how you think this line might get at the center or ethos of this poem?
I’m so touched by that! I think people in Sacramento are so good at making something out of very little–there’s that line about food stamps and Maldon salt, which is true: a good friend of mine and I pooled ours together and put on a garden party, and I think that’s beautiful. I went to junior college and we were always doing that kind of stuff, cramming people into our really small spaces, using the juice concentrates from our work to make cocktails after a close on a random weekday, creating extravagance to the point of absurdity–I think meeting people who were also interested in that kind of life had a very profound impact on me. And I do mean “something out of nothing” for both better and worse; people are so creative that I think it results in a lot of “What do you think she meant by that? You let her talk to you like that?” types of fights. So, bones meant to chase are bones that are tougher than the average–they can take the wear and tear that comes from picking every battle, from going after something with very futile odds, from taking things too far. I think there could also be a very literal interpretation, too, where California towns sprawl and sprawl and you do kind of have to be in it for the long haul to get from one end of town to the other; a lot from my anthro classes has really stuck around in my head, and I picture that same wear and change on bones after going through these intense and strenuous things in any iterations–so the idea of what’s so often purported as a small town entailing such a long walk from end to end felt perfectly thematic. Inversely, though, I also think people here also have a skill for witnessing insane nonsense happening around us and then playing it very straight and taking it in stride, which is maybe even more fascinating to me. It’s alchemical, almost, either way.
How did this poem come to be? What spurred you to write this?
The very first draft was pretty short, about five really sparse lines. It was written after walking around midtown Sac with two people I really care about, and we were having this very weighty conversation about all kinds of things–and I interrupted completely and just went, “Beam!” and pointed up, and was met with “Beam!” in return. Here’s some context: “the beam” is a giant purple lazer that Sacramento installed at the stadium late 2022, and now they light it with this giant button every time the Kings win. They made it extra bright this past season so you can see it from every part of town, and they had to get clearance from air traffic control and everything. It’s very theatrical and very silly, which is my bread and butter. 50 Cent lit it once.
Why did you choose Team Taylor?
The “What is Taylor into?” criteria pulled me in fast. I think the specific call to send all our basketball poems your way definitely helped–it’s funny how on-the-nose it feels in retrospect, but at the time, I thought a poem about Sacramento was way too niche for maybe anyone. But, you know–it was pretty encouraging after the fact for a multitude of reasons (the sweetest acceptance letter I’ve ever received in my life included), but namely considering how much I write about my hometown, no matter how hard I try not to. Tangentially, “turn nouns into verbs” completely spoke to my weird blend of dialects and linguistic quirks. I could really go on and on about how obsessed I was with the submission criteria/preferences, how “religious iconography and religious trauma” yanked me in, too, as always–I was raised Irish Catholic-ish (ghosted my confirmation ceremony), so I thought some of that might seep in, again, whether or not I meant to consciously. Also, who’s to say there wasn’t something biblically punishing about cramming into Tiger (on a Sunday morning) to be personally brutalized by game 7 last year?
As ride or die as I (obviously) am for Team Taylor, I do want to take the time to thank both Taylor and Martheaus for those kind words upon my acceptance. BRAWL is a sick as hell idea run by such genuinely talented and thoughtful writers and I’m so beyond thrilled to get to see more of it. Thank you endlessly for letting me be a part of this!