a chainsaw made for her and yours
The Chainsaw was invented by Scottish scientists John Aitken and James Jeffray who created a hand cranked “Aitken’s flexible chainsaw”, to split the pubic bone from women in difficult labor and remove the unborn child.
***
just like your mother
whose life
must never hunger for herself
she must double mouth tit feed
meat hooks hung of lips, gums teeth, lace the mean memory of red indented flesh the elastic around her spine, holding her breast
just like your mother
whose life
was a bed made for her swollen lipped a suckled thing, slick and drooling throated beast smile and take it, shaking, automatic doesn’t mean that she liked it this could be you, your sister, daughter, grandmother
just like your mother
whose life
a vacant cessel over the kiln on fire
wet phlegm knots and veined clay
black witch before scientist or landowner
need not a vote, book or look just eyes behind and over her shoulder
just like your mother
whose life
was not her own, must perform pretty, but taught, never pretty, enough the power of the made less powerful, a cursed thief of fruit and adam-ribbed, a price paid again, again and she is still fighting for her right to choose
just like your mother
Power Outage
I cried in the grocery aisle. I told a story to myself
that it was the tired, slapped around section of red
and yellow apples. Their price, just reduced. I knew
they’d be tossed out soon. Their journey left them
aged and bruised—only, sweet potential. It’s a shame
what little power they had; even less so, at this endcap
—waxed to a tiny reflection for man’s consumption.
Back at the orchard, if they weren’t picked, if they’d
snapped from the branch and rolled free— they might
still end up wet, mush in the hyper cheeks of a hungry
squirrel. The lights trembled off, then on again, then off.
The ache of hunger is a wonder for where the power went.
Then, the small metal arm spit from the ceiling, the AC
rattled a Yeti’s bellow. The cart wailed, I had to keep
moving, forward through the dark. Hunger woke up.
Every step, each move, a consequence of my own choice.
So maybe I’m done telling stories that box my own power
in. The lights came back on—so crisp are the blues in this
red state. I am no apple. I am voice with letters that could
get chewed out or tossed, but as hunger is a reminder that I
will die—it is also a reminder of how much, right now,
I am alive.
***
These days I wonder if the sun
even wants to return tomorrow.
The way people behave in the dark
has made us more vulnerable to loss of light.
How we treat each other matters.
How we treat the world matters
and, my God, do we need the sun.
I’m ready to admit— I am afraid.
All these pedophiles in power
and their look- away- following
hold the white cotton sheets
and are in bed with the cover up.
A whiff, acrid peel of emesis, I am sick—
we should stand as The United Against This.
Justice is slow, menace is quick
and money is the darkest magic,
it will keep hands busy reaching for more
instead of seeing the truth inside your nervous system.
You know what happens
after all this spiraling?
You hit floor. Some of us have cracked
our spines against it long ago. It’s hard
to admit fear in times like this, but
we need each other more than labeling.
We are no longer watching conspiracy,
we’re seeing madness unraveling its guts
and the spill is ice cold, but we must quiver from the knees
as heartbreak does, and yes, it’s hard to keep air in—
air in the future we were dreaming,
dreaming the floor will fill with weight,
weight of we, the people, to start over,
over as dawn promises new beginning
may the just and good hurry, get up, My God
we need the sun. And I need you. And I need you.
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