I’ve spent more than a little time wondering what would happen if famous mythological figures were fleshed-out by ACTUAL women, who know that our brains and feelings don’t just work in black-and-white.
My sleeves are an open tin.
I mean it like it is — like it sounds.
You wouldn’t even recognize me:
opera-length,
quellazaire held like a spear
held like a periscope.
No matter how hard one tries to expel nomenclature, the minor keys linger in all-night gas stations.
Elsewhere I was a daughter, I was a mother, I was either/or.
The doctor asks, were you blue as death
or infancy? Metal on flame
and bearing it or mad, embracing it,
I say. Without praise.
you are a brush of calligraphy
sweeping designs across my belly
ink splattering circles and symbols
like a string of black lipped oyster pearls
strewn between my thighs
She holds it out for me to touch, and as if I’m unsure that the death is fully removed from that chain, I touch it briefly, ready to wash my hands. The metal is cold like a body.
Thickened calluses. One finger crippled to quarter moon,
and the index, childhood impaled, bearing jagged scars.
I think it’s really important to recognize some of the issues I write about are bigger than myself. So if I’m able to connect on a bigger scale (whether that be with a community, nationally, or globally), I’ve achieved my purpose. But, I can’t reach anyone if I’m not first being honest with myself.
