The Brooklyn Rail

THE PELICAN

Like the pelican I see
In the Book of Bestiaries,
I pierce my breast
With my sharp beak
& let my bright red blood
Feed my child my life.

FERTILITY

Kali, known in Sanskrit
As She Who Is Death,
Is also the goddess
Of Time & Fertility.
She is blue & black with
A long, red tongue.

There’s only one way
To make life,
But countless
Ways to make death.

When I was pregnant, I felt
That my brain was
Creating the child inside me.

Sperm are the only cells
That are made in one
Body but meant
To live in another.

Sometimes I feel that having
A child means that I trade
My life for his.
& sometimes it’s like
He gave birth to me.

CORFU

In Greece I feel the ancient
Parts of me nourished
While the newer ruins
In my life bleed.

There is nothing more
Dangerous than an unloved man.

Artemis hunts.
I breathe through my feet.
I run fire and hold my wound.

If I don’t remind myself
Of where I come from,
It turns into a darkness
And eats me.

He fucks me, he hits me.
I’m shocked by my own decay.
The voices of God & the
Devil are barely distinguishable.

I am angry at you for
Everything my father did.

Corfu is shaped like a mermaid.
We live amidst a thousand wild cats
And the mummy
With his head in a box of gold,
Mouth agape.
The kumquats, the feta,
The honey cakes, the
Singing priests in black.

The sea kneads my body.
The moon is low and red.

It’s a myth that black
Widow spiders
Kill their mates.
They only do it when stressed
In captivity.

SEEING

In the Byzantine Hell
Mosaic on Torcello,
The sinners sin by looking;
They are damned by hearing.
The ancient wall is marked
With disembodied eyes and ears.

You scratch out my eyes
In a photograph.
You say it turns you on
To see me like that,
Unable to see.

Queen Elizabeth the First
Wore a dress
Embroidered with eyes & ears.
All seeing, all hearing.
I want a dress made
Of my screaming mouths.

When you scream, your
Blue eyes turn black.
You can never say no to me,
You know.
You scream &
I cover my eyes.

Saint Lucy plucked out her
Eyes with a fork.
She gave them to her
Betrothed on a plate because
It was the part of her
He liked the best.

DUENDE

When my father left,
I stopped eating meat.
Meat was my favorite food.

When my brother was born,
I wanted his penis to be my own.
I wanted to play with it,
My toy, my play thing.

Gandhi required that he slept in bed
With naked teenage girls.
My experiments with truth.

Who has more power, life or death?

Fingerspitzengefül is a German word
Which means, to create with one’s fingers.
I’m pulling this poem
From the ghosts in my hands.

Daisy was three-years-old
When her father put a
Gun in her hands, helped
Her aim it at him,
And asked her to
Pull the trigger and to shoot.
She didn’t do it.
But immediately after,
She stopped eating meat
Because she felt the desire
To kill and it frightened her.