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we are the girls with the cheesegrater hearts
wet red nicks inflicted with each involuntary
beat
with driveway spikes for teeth
piercing our lips
backing out every word uttered
with oedipal proportioned inevitability
we are the girls
with timebomb tongues
counting down with others
duck and cover
unable to contain the runaway train
of our freightweighted force of nature
with pocketfuls of shiny shards
with palmfuls of question marks
with bellyfuls of crackling chrysalis glittering
we are the girls
anointed in snake oil
we didn’t covet
and now we are running
breathless
from screaming at joshua trees
in the rain
to make clean what was tainted
praying to be redeemed:
in/clemency
we are the girls exquisite in our comprehension
of excruciate
we still love
we are leaking transmissions
from each duct
yet
for every breath we
ponder reversing
for every moment insurmountable
we are 10 fold beholden grateful
awestruck
at the vast and delicate delectation
of this particular and precious and tenuous
existence
we are bursting at the seams
innocent criminals
teeming with rubies
we make way
any helena will tell you
consider the orchid amputated and atrophying in
glass
note the skinned bloodball of discarded mink:
it is the nature of our species
to destroy what it desires
to consume
to violate and take
what it deems beauty
we make way
we are the girls trapped in concrete
only knowing there is a snowglobe inside
a memory floating in pale grace
a place where the bottom of the sea
has heaved its own tectonics
and nudged up through the surface of the earth
in all its sedimentary splendor
it is triumph despite the unbearable gravity of be-
ing
we make way
with pocketfuls of shiny shards
with palmfuls of question marks
with bellyfuls of crackling chrysalis glistening
glittering
(from the chapbook glistening, glittering)
copyright 2004
Rachel
Kann |
