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# Three Affinities by Nathan Hoks
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/three-affinities-by-nathan-hoks/
- Published: 2013-06-28T23:10:32.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:35:01.000Z
- Description: Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected a poem by Nathan Hoks for the latest in a monthly series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.
- Author: Nathan Hoks
- Tags: Poetry, Hyperallergic Poetry, Joe Pan, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:59 (2012, 2013, part 2)

*Our poetry editor,* [*Joe Pan*](http://joepan.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com)*, has selected a poem by Nathan Hoks for for the latest in a* [*monthly series*](http://hyperallergic.com/tag/hyperallergic-poetry/) *that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.*

\* \* \*

![Pedro Luis Palencia, "Magritte.exe" (2010) (via pedroluispalencia.deviantart.com)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/06/magritte_exe_by_nohaycomolodeuno-640.jpg)

Pedro Luis Palencia, “Magritte.exe” (2010) (via pedroluispalencia.deviantart.com)

## Three Affinities

*Nightwalk of Affinity*

I was walking toward a gigantic lake.  
A little man held my hand and even though  
The breeze blew sand into my ear,  
I could hear the man’s breath. I took  
A light out of my pocket and  
Stabbed it into the darkness.  
The man asked what I was looking for  
And I asked him who he thought he was  
Or what was he trying to become,  
Attached as he was like a holster to my hip.  
Perhaps you need a gun, he said, to slide  
Into my mouth. We should walk more  
Quickly, I said, this lake is known to vaporize.  
So what? he said. That gives you a chance  
To clarify these feelings for yourself,  
To clarify yourself for these feelings, to uncover  
The faint beam of light that like a stream  
Runs straight through your body  
And unties the multiple knots of your self-image.  
And instead of talking back I looked down  
For a mouth to see if he was emitting a glow.

*Polysaccharidean Affinity*

My body has become another man’s.  
He needs help managing his feelings,  
They overwhelm his motor skills,  
His limbs flail, he slams doors and puts  
His fist through walls. His odorless  
Body is supple and unravels like yarn.  
His insides feel like the roasting flesh  
Of a sweet potato. This orange  
Human spirit holds the loveliest  
Starch particles and if I drizzle a little  
Water from my mouth they congeal.  
When I lie down my body unfurls  
And the shadow of a conifer breaks  
Through a window. The other man,  
His breath and odor, hovers near the bed,  
A cobra’s hood to corral our spirits.

*Affinity as Iceberg*

We were in a dim room where there was  
No broom, no fan, not even a vase  
So the flowers were shivering when a soundless voice  
Touched the two of us, rubbing at our edges  
Until we could not tell ourselves apart.  
We felt, you’d later say, as though we’d given  
Birth to a fierce presence that would float  
To us like an iceberg, condescending and sinister,  
Yet somehow something we’d vowed to protect,  
We’d weep when the smallest chunks would calve  
Into the glassy water. It was all-consuming,  
As though an immense window had opened  
Inside me, the one you wanted installed  
In the dining room so you could eat a potato  
And watch the greenness, its systematic  
And intolerable increase over time.