12/30: “The Warrior Logs Stock of the Weak”
“Mothers can’t be good single parents, its impossible. Something will definitely go wrong.”
- My sisters’ stepmother (paraphrased).
The patient foot knows that
it will never walk with dinosaurs.
You are the foot,
I am the fucking dinosaur.
I am collecting you from
the knee of the road with my teeth -
a cornucopia of stale fruit -
I fully intend to waste you.
I am no icarus of a daughter.
Upon my crossing of darling worlds,
I spilled out of my mother’s belly
like a pomegranate between the incisors
of the ape’s mouth.
I sword valiant with my new lungs -
a job well done,
she takes credit for that scream,
I know that it is hers to take;
as is my life;
as is this mouth;
as is this mountainous brave;
What you got?
You got a gospel of big talk
and doll hands -
let me be the first to tell you
of how they can hold no water.
You know shit of motherhood
until you’ve offered your
tired uterus to god,
until you’ve pulled
the weeds up from yourself
and lain them to rest.
That man you wake
next to, with his dentures
lost in the pillowcase - he came
and went. We hold no remorse.
We did not mourn the
day of your wedding
(though just the week before,
he came calling at my
mother’s feet/
loud with his
mouth issuing old sap).
Your concern with
the status of single parenting,
tickles me;
I implore you to be sure then,
next time (let’s face it - he
runs as quickly as he comes)
to find someone
without two children and a
pregnant home to bleed over.
He left my mother
because she was too cerebral
fire for him,
too valourous winner for him,
his legs
distorted and unfit for the climb -
But you are his equal
a fortunate marionette of lame.
Notice how he will filter
you dry; notice how time will
beg you to refill.
A final toast:
I eat women like you.
Fork and knife,
seated at the table of
centuries.
I cannot wait until
we formally meet again.
Cleopatra VII (9/30)
Perhaps there are many spells of darkness Perhaps I am the hand which borrowed the last Perhaps I hailed The Isis from her annex Perhaps she stole into my body and made feast there Perhaps I loved an adolescent moon Perhaps it dimmed after Perhaps I am the apple of the blasphemous mouth Perhaps the obscenity from the jowls of a fallen god Perhaps my belly as the sole stretch of sky Perhaps my seed as the sole quailing empire and Perhaps no more and Perhaps no more and Perhaps it ends with mine
?
Rhetoric (5/30)
On weekends,
the D train crickets
through the tunnels in its
own, patient revere.
I stand,
shuffling my
heavy from foot to foot.
I hate waiting for
trains. I can urge
it to hurry-up
but can never expect it
to give a fuck about that.
The rats are
quartering their meal,
jerking their heady heads
at the Styrofoam from the
block chicken spot.
I remind myself
that beauty is a mirage
we all subscribe to
and try not to judge.
I am the newest subject of
something
they said would
be love;
They say
- the prospects begin to
care less, you will no longer
be the choice made -
I am arrogant but steady,
I know things too.
I know that a choice is a cyclical
ordeal
once it begins
it perpetuates itself
in nature. To come to the
choice
you must have
had to choose it.
The train creeps
in
slow
as if it
were carrying the entire
yard of earth
on two legs.
4/30
Its 9 PM, on the spot.
If I were a measure of
anything right now
It would be a trail of garment
from the pastor’s pocket
on its way to the bottom
of the baptizing basin.
I wanna have a few conversations:
One, with the entity
who decided on bringing me here.
You got a guide?
Where’s the sojourner’s map,
the flint for the wick,
the road, even?
Do you not see how small I am?
How the most
patient water will still
swallow me whole?
Am I your second Jonah?
Your most impractical joke,
the firelight story.
I am so trying,
with my elbows linked
to each other,
my skin shrugging out
of itself.
The Years the Locusts Have Eaten: 2/30
1998
I am still mainly a strange
thinking one, with large eyes of other
and no bark. I am caught touching another
girl in the bathroom stall furthest from the slop
sink that had yet reached my waist, I am too young
a sorcerous - they are confused.
I am asked to sketch a picture of where it
had first tickled me, of where I had come
to know too much.
2000
The middle miracle arrives with no heavy
greeting, but she comes with the birth
of a prowling grief.
I am asked to
say it,
out loud.
2004
The self is its boldest bloodletter, the
blade - its tempered guide.
2005
I am still mainly a strange
thinking one, but this time
a measure of odd noises and
reaching charm.
2012
I am the heirloom
of the pillage sometimes - I am
the pride of some things, I am so often
caught giving them away.
I am bashful with the need to quell
the guilt, but it hammers through the
skull of the night and buries there
for seasons. It is the brave’s plague
for choosing to walk on so many
legs.
Slipping Through the Noose (1/30)
with Phoenix heart/
The body has lit into itself
with big, arching flame/
The body branches forward
to suspend itself/
The body is in constant/ conversation
with gravity/
If it were not an
instrument of/ shadow,
if it did not spell
under the/ bulb,
if it did not burn
so expertly/ who would
claim it?
This is what I have learned of survival:
You were spoken
here
by the divine gift giver,
a woman who crafts
each new child with
her own palms/ in the back
of a chilled warehouse/ her
brow, a heavy silk spun by some/
foreign ocean/
You were her most/
meticulous creation, her/
bounty stowed in a/ carryon,
her mouth sewn shut/ by the
prospect of betrayal/
A night traveler, with your/ blueprint
pressed to her stomach/
Every song is yours to sing.
