My mother came home one day
without her uterus.
The doctor took it out.
Like someone heard me say
Let’s act it out,
act it out physically.
I was the baby who never cried
The snake on your breast
who stung you dry
The vicious pet
and yet you held
I shot past her knees past her hips past
her breasts past her shoulders, way past her wisps of hair, those rays
of grey light radiating from her shrunken head.
She had to look up to speak to me.
She had to have wide eyes.
Life begins when the children are out of the house
and the dog is dead, I said.
She laughed.
Dyed her hair black. Made me stay.
TIME BRINGS CHILDREN
THEY BURN HOLES IN OUR STOMACHS
POP OUR BELLY BUTTONS
DEATH MAKES SENSE
Weightless in your sticky fluids,
too long you kept me in.
2
Sometimes a voice instead
of being eaten by wind
is spat out
An echo sprouts
on the mountainside
Soon you have sisters — echoes
propping each other
3
I was in the bath with my forest jelly bath bubbles.
He was out, flossing his teeth.
`Bathtime is an adventure when you wallow
in these mild, blackcurrant-fragranced bubbles.
Dip your hand and scoop out some wobbly jelly,
add to running water and slide in!
DON’T EAT THIS — WASH WITH IT’
The shower curtain with violet tulips was half shut.
`I’ve been feeling horny for a few weeks now’, I said
`Have you’, said his voice and then — ‘so have I’.
I swept aside the tulip bush and looked up
at a point in the mirror, where briefly
our eyes touched. Then
I opened the hot water tap. He bent his head to spit.
4
A geological thing to happen
To start with skin, end with leather
But I no longer wish to be friends with passion that dies
Yes passion dies, nobody warned me
The penis grows to the same length in desire of all degrees.
As you lit a candle I thought, twilight is brief
We’ll wake up when it’s white
They’ll be bringing in the hard light
Instead, go, Go Now
And when I give you all my love, quick, take it away
before I take it back
5
The dog next door
who shunned me when I bit him
owns the sweetness in my face.
The governess who has seen me naked
has turned into a ventilator.
I’ll show you my mirror.
You show me yours.
Darling, can I
let you in
where my soul
walks?
See my claws itching.
See my heavy breathing.
See my curling tongue.
My last dream
left stabs
in my guts.
I woke up and searched
his face.
How like a god
my lover was.
Now he’s a fox
bull owl howl
viper.
Dark
lean mean
hungry
ten headed hydra.
Compassion,
mirror girl,
compassion.
Take the sick
and sinning
to your breasts.
Feel
for every monster
in every pram.
6
The soul picks at cuticles in concentration.
In the rollercoaster I cling to my body as if I was separating.
See low white clouds posing like silly ghosts with hands thrown up.
The sky is limitless however high you fly you know you’ll fall
down down here.
Yet jump into a sea and you disappear leaving a bubble.
Two people exclude everyone else — if one of them should die
what is the other to do?
Cry, cry, you can reach the end, finally the kitten in the bag
pulls in its tail behind it.
Are you alone? Yes, the friends I love most are far South.
And then we act as if distances are impermeable.
Take my face in my hands and show it around.
Mirrors will keep screaming night after night tirelessly for faces. Every man is my husband Every woman my wife. One day we will unite.
7
Lock me up but make the walls solid. Seal every inch of your open bars.
Call that a view? These are just gaps in their flashing teeth. Striped
markings
of my slavery.
Like billboards show things I can’t afford. Make me scratch and sniff for
a few sky strips
Between the grills is a saying – freedom exists. A lie, repeated, a hymn
Big cat jaws yawn, snap the neck of nothing. Forced turnings in measured
space play kitten chasing tail.
8
Back from the markets of lust, haven’t bought anything.
Our trolls rally on the windowsill – the leopard who mates for life, handless
martial grey beard, taped up windowpane, ancient ring.
Living in the presence of each other’s lives, from order to chaos, dispelling
heat.
The one star you find and pin with your eyes as I scramble for a wish.
We see the lightning together, gasping, lips sealing around a vacuum.
I watch you asleep, stealing your time. It rains and rains, the tanks fill up
and the grass grows inches overnight.
The jealousy because I think you are dying faster, the faint darkness
between your lips, the striving for a piece of your skin.
You lock me up to make sure I am there when you return.
I wait for days to see you, when finally you appear I walk away.
9
Eyes are emissaries, soft knocks, nibs. Eyes are tongues, mad riverbeds
insomniac for salt. Eyes are fangs, bared chisel tattooing face on retina. Bite this word, lick that wound.
Eyes are the itineraries of shooting stars on the tail of new disasters.
Faster than witnesses, slow as alibis, don’t look! Phoenix of mirages, allusions,
holy ash, rising mohair soot. Darkness caving into black diamonds. Lashes fan
the air between.
Stones drown to measure water of expression, water nothing dissolves
in, pure staring child. Soft convex pillows, seed of sleep.
A false door revolves, a roulette swings back to starting position, the
masochists bring out X-ographs.
Unfurling, clitoris. Descriptions, insatiable.
Eyes, are braille
10
Two can play silence. Silence for two players. The time it takes to play
silence.
We seize the silence together, own it separately.
You plant a silent minefield, I walk on it, flashes of meaning exploding
in my head.
