by Luka Holmegaard

2023

 

 

It’s New Year’s Eve

During the dinner we talk about how holes 

will be in for the next year

All kinds. And cut-outs

along with decaf coffee, patience

dripping and trans, we predict

making it all the way up to being the most used search word on PornHub

My friend has a pair of jeans that she wears over tight lace

they have so many holes in them

you almost can’t call them jeans anymore

the whole thigh cut up

As if a piece of clothing can dare you

to see that it is what it is

A pair of jeans, a wink 

and the skin exposed

Holes, all kinds. Something just hanging together, still

Something contracting, a muscular pull

or something see-through

everything is right there

Hot breath on the window

these days before twelfth night 

Raunächten, it’s called in German

nights with a grainy surface

the membrane between this world and others being especially thin

and you have to be careful

Five days into the new year

Five weeks in compression

That which is no longer part of me

I wonder where it is now

It’s probably burned

I speak to some friends about the possibility

of taking the removed material with you after a surgery

My first thought is that it must be illegal

But on the other hand, how could you not own

something that was just a part of you?

I was not the one wanting this souvenir

I never felt cut and stitched, I mean I know it happened

but it felt more gradual, slow

a swelling disappearing into the body

Small boat-shaped scars under the nipples

something cut away and something left

P, who introduces the thought at New Year’s 

is really talking about cutting things out of papers and magazines

A way of remembering, curating, keeping

A pretty or interesting photograph

A clean cut, or working

to create an opening, expanding

massaging. What is 

in

for the year, I think also still crochet

I am wearing a sweater, green and black

with three smaller holes over the chest

the whole back a draping of large holes and crochet threads

D hugs me and startles

apologizes, her hands are cold

One day I wanted to say sleeveless shirt 

and accidentally said shirtless

a shirtless shirt

Later in the New Year’s Night 

we are several people in net from Erotic Paradise

that great shop in the center of town

This almost-not-clothing

almost not a shirt

but it looks like one

has the shape of a shirt

I’m just wondering

why holes are so hot

The unevenness of it

A hand in the mouth, fingers together

as when fisting, exploring

slow, like a tool

How open, how much

Mesh, fishnet. More holes

than most men

More possibilities, textures

now I’m thinking again of Vivienne Westwood

Safety pins really look like stitches over a scar

A whole collection of top hats without tops from the eighties

big hairdos rising from them like from vulcanoes

The sides curving outwards, like the leaves on that big, sexy flower

Someone thinks of it and we look it up:

Anthurium flowers are often red 

and look unreal, as if made of shiny plastic

I’m just wondering

why holes are so hot

 

 

 

Luka Holmegaard (he/they) is a writer based in Copenhagen. He has published several novels and written essays and art criticism for the national Danish newspaper Information. His latest book, Look, is an essayistic memoir on clothing, textile, work and transition. It received critical acclaim in Denmark and is translated into German - Vouge Germany called it "One of the best fashion books of 2022". Holmegaard has been nominated twice for the Politiken literary award and received prizes and grants given out by the Danish Arts Foundation, the Velux Foundation and the Danish Writers Association amongst others.

 

 

Credits:

Poem by Luka Holmegaard 

An archive submission, that HÄN received via email in March 2023. 

Want to submit your work, your story, a piece of history? You can email us at hi@han-archive.com or submit via our submission tool here. 

 

24/05/2023