SWELL
I have never had a mother, or, no longer have
or, once did, briefly, for a day or two.
Perhaps she was only mine
during the wet crown of hours I spun my skull
through her ripe & widening cunt,
then fastened to her nipple—
a botched daughter ugly with hunger.
Or maybe it was long before the orphaning,
before the womb fell quiet & her brain
went sour—gentle reader, won’t you permit me
this sweetness?—the morning she straddled
my father, a black flood of hair,
throat opened to God, the red muscle of her quickening
like the pulse of a dazzled child. Yes,
let it be there, in that heat-ravaged
moment as she caught the pale bloom of herself
in the mirror & looking
back over her shoulder
fell in love with the animal engine of her body,
not for the daughter it could nurture,
but for the girl it would kill.
SWELL
My children know,
without me telling them,
I no longer have a mother.
Or,
never had.
Or,
once did, briefly,
for a day
or two
or maybe
just in that hour
as I turned my skull
through her
dark & widening cunt.
Or, perhaps, only
those soft, small minutes
following
a blind gasp
as I latched onto her nipple
and tugged—a botched
daughter—ugly with hunger.
My children know,
without me telling them,
I unraveled a woman
with my being,
greeted her voice
with a newborn’s yelp,
wet as a jackal’s.
As I blinked myself
into existence,
her brain went sour.
My children know,
without me telling them,
I am a pile of dishes
a brief mother smashed
against the kitchen floor.
Collapsed milk splitting wood.
And when they ask, gently,
Tell us, tell us what your mother
looks like! I lie. Say, I do not know.
It’s been such a long, long time.
As if her hair, that long
dark funeral,
is not my own.
As if the face
of a ghost
could ever spoil.
furnace
a little iron piece of hell blinking hot bellyful of coal
Mother would cast the sheets in, snapping,
and boil down my brother’s urine
our tears
sweat
bloodstains and
the furnace would suck those sheets between its teeth
and spit them back out
so white they hurt your brain to look at the sun on them
or the furnace would digest white rice balls
that Mother would fry into calas steaming with hard sauce
because of the furnace I grew up thinking whiskey and sugar
smelled like fresh laundry
I say the furnace was hell because it was full of such trickery
and so hot
could burn your fingertips two ways to Sunday
and back
I bet Mother hated that furnace
she always looked mad when she had open it
furnace
a piece of iron hell blinking hot bellyful of coal
Mother cast the sheets in, snapping,
to boil down my brother’s urine
our tears
sweat
bloodstains
and the furnace would suck those sheets between its teeth
spit them back out
so white they hurt your brain to look at the sun on them.
or the furnace would digest rice balls
Mother fried into calas steaming with hard sauce
Mother the furnace workhorse, Mother of reddened palms
of chapped and burning fingertips.
because of the furnace I grew up confusing the smells of
whiskey and sugar with fresh laundry
I say the furnace was hell because it was full of such trickery
so hot
could burn your fingertips two ways to Sunday
and back
as if scorching away the mess of us
was the only way to get clean
our sticky fingers, our mussed hair,
to smell good and sharp as hell
washed up with whiskey.
I bet Mother hated that furnace
she always looked mad when she opened it
but she wanted us to be bright, sweet,
even if it meant unfastening a little inferno
and throwing in her skin, boiling liquor.
A Scream at Night
What is fear. Or when.
What is representation. Or present.
What is pressing. What is pressed.
Or who. A woman. A teen.
Her father presses the gates shut.
Presses her into a crate. The crate
into a shed. She unfolds by morning.
Binds her chest.
She walks unwomanned.
An American soldier stands on a small hill
of a small peninsula, smaller than 1/40
of America. He sees the small hills underneath
her bandages and yells: Stop over there!
in Japanese. The language they’ve both learned.
When she runs, she is unmistakably
woman. She falls. He laughs.
What is a female body in a stolen country.
Or whose. The soldiers are young. They fear going out
without a bang. What is right in war.
What is left in war. War hasn’t left Korea.
I have. I fold. I give up, myself,
to you. Which one of you said
let’s have raunchy Korean sex
to me. Do you represent America
to me. Did those soldiers to her. I fear
what if you’re too big for my small
opening. Closing. Opening. Closing
my fingers around you, yours around mine.
long polished nails
Reyhaneh Jabbari, a 26-year-old Iranian woman, was hanged on October 25th, 2014, for killing a man who was attempting to rape her. This poem is an erasure of Jabbari’s last voice message to her mother.
Night should have taken
my body.
The old story: death
not the end of life.
Face it. Persevere.
As a lady
I did not beg.
I had long, polished nails.
You planted love in me
and I shed my beauty,
shaving my hair.
Don’t cry.
The beauty of wishes
is unending.
My heritage.
Country, listen:
pray and turn
into wind.
God will beat us awake.
Soft-heart—
in the other world
it is you God wants.
Radiohead – Idioteque
[Verse 1]
Who's in the bunker? Who's in the bunker?
Women and children first, and the children first, and the children
I'll laugh until my head comes off
I'll swallow until I burst, until I burst, until I
Who's in the bunker? Who's in the bunker?
I have seen too much!
I haven't seen enough, you haven't seen it
I'll laugh until my head comes off
Women and children first and children first and children
[Hook]
Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time
Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time
[Verse 2]
Ice Age coming, Ice Age coming
Let me hear both sides, let me hear both sides, let me hear both
Ice Age coming, Ice Age coming
Throw it on the fire, throw it on the fire, throw it on the
We're not scaremongering
This is really happening, happening
We're not scaremongering
This is really happening, happening
Mobiles skwerking, mobiles chirping
Take the money and run, take the money and run
Take the money!
~
Women and children first, and the children first, and the children
laugh until my head comes off
Ice Age coming, Ice Age coming
Let me hear both sides, let me hear both sides, let me hear both
Take the money and run, take the money and run
Take the money