Logan Berry’s “Lordosis” has been paired with a silk dress from Alexander McQueen’s 2009 show: “Natural Dis-tinction Un-natural Selection." McQueen was inspired by Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859). Like the mise-en-abyme expanse of the crystalline spine digitally printed down the back of the McQueen garment, the scope of Berry's poem is equally vast. The poem is a cosmic tempest of muscle and flora reaching (and screaming) for "something new."

— Paul Cunningham, Editor


​

​Lordosis


​Proceptive 
Lioness 

Lifts her haunches 
In heat

The whole galaxy
Held in orbit 

By thigh muscles,
Furred & flexed 

Balancing strength 
& openness 

Sustained
Like a prayer 

The coital cries
Of everything alive 

Of swollen bulbs
& honeybees 

Aphids, fish
& fungi 

Plasmids & pollen 
Gushing through shafts 

Roiling tension 
In the firmament 

A swelling star
About to burst 

Something new reaches through
Our carcasses



​




Logan Berry is the author of several books, most recently Doom is the House Without a Door. He's a playwright and theatre director, and his 2024 Sarcoma Cycle trilogy marked the first repertory production in Chicago in over a decade. X, Insta, website.