DAD’S PROPERTY
Me, his property
to do with as he wishes;
mind and body shackled
by his penis.
Feeling and thought stifled
by his wrath.
No space to hide,
no room for breath.
Death swiped him early,
providence seemed good.
Released from bondage,
by an open door I stood,
unaware his talons would grab
from six feet below.
Climbing toward health
I’m snared by Hell’s claws.
While mirrors blazed fear
I hid from tyranny
then trampled through memory,
wearing a mask of normalcy.
Father still holds the deed
to much of me.
BEFORE THE BURNING OF FALL LEAVES
Two years after Father’s release from Mauthausen
Anne and I are born in the USA,
the first and last of a generation.
Thirty minutes after Anne’s debut
doctors drag me into the klieg lights.
Hearing of our double birth,
Father weeps. I am the second,
the extra he never forgives.
Swaddled in Mother’s arms, Anne goes home,
I stay under incubator lights.
The one who swam with me
for three seasons
is held by our big sister.
Before pumpkins are carved,
Uncle Robert picks me up,
brings the stranger to that family of four.
Father, whose rage sputtered before he spent
three months next to crematorium chimneys,
does the goose-step into this little girl.
He does not brand me with numbers
but indelibly marks me different.
This fallen female weeps
from September to September to September
PONDERING SHELLS AND COINS IN A DISH
I
One mollusk shell
plump as an African gourd,
a miniature conch,
one pierced shell waiting
to be strung into a necklace,
a white triangular chip
with amethyst stripes—
calcified sea-flowers,
fingerprints of the sea,
none duplicated,
and clusters of copper discs dull or glinting
their machined profiles in relief,
each identical.
II
A fraternal twin,
I have my own design,
wombed face to face, Anne and I
mirrored, bumped, squeezed,
thumb sucked, pulled and shoved
as one, as two.
She pushed out,
left so much room, I didn’t
want to leave;
exhausted, I rested, but
forceps pinched, pulled;
Mother squeezed, pushed,
determined that I vacate home
eight months after I began
a struggle that echoes still.
III
Twins, a double accident,
born in America,
foreigners
to their parents;
Stanza Break
PONDERING SHELLS AND COINS IN A DISH continued
each without shadows,
neither followed the other,
wanted to be the other—
I envied some
of what she got:
cigar wrapper rings,
a Hop-along Cassidy outfit,
the nickname Engie Angel.
IV
I was the one
reshaped by Father’s abrasions
incessant as ocean waves
yet my fingerprints remained
patterned as clam shells—
he could not erase them,
claim them as he had the rest
when he pinned me to the jetty,
lathered me with his foam.
Mother, clad as an angel fish,
unobservant as caviar,
scooted to the sea floor, refused
to let churning sand or water
ruffle her fins.
V
Plucked
from the sea,
parched by his heat;
stamped, riveted, flattened
into a profile-child
drilled, drilled, drilled—
a dull trinket dangling on his chain
THE GIRL I WAS
Four-years-old,
with his claw-arm he caught
my wrist, dragged me to the water,
my screams pealed as
my heels dug shallow ruts
in the sand.
He walked deeper
in. Ribs cinched against his torso, lids scrunched,
mucoused face pressed
against his chest, mouth pinched tight
to dam the flood, I hung
surfboard stiff.
Inhaling
thrashing waves, I hiccoughed,
coughed foam.
Flooding, flooding.
Then, as if he’d tamed a beast—
chin lifted, Father turned, slowly bobbed
to shore, dropped me
like a hefty suitcase.
Head drooped forward, wobbling,
I stepped around plaid
and striped blankets with bathers,
stared hard at grains of sand that shifted
between my toes,
scouring memory, I reached Mother talking
with my two sisters. My face
must have been illegible
as a shell, I sat, wheezed. Later,
in slow motion I ventured to the edge
of spent waves, filled my pink pail
with sand; its moist weight pulled
my right arm long. Softly I spoke
to my sisters about sand pies,
castles, and wheezed. How often
had I been caught? For each time
I was dropped, then forgot,
and was brave enough to play,
I’ll pin gold stars to her hair,
the girl I was.
FISH AND TACKLE
I am seven,
on the Greenwood Lake dock
and catch you,
my first/last fish.
My hook pulls you up by your lip.
Frantic flap, flap.
I can’t stop
the swinging of my line,
can’t touch, grab.
I yelp and freeze.
neighbor whose rod I use
removes the hook.
throws you back.
You swim free.
I retreat to three years old—
Father’s long rod,
he reels me in.
I can’t extract his hook.
I stop flapping,
am slack as a sleeping eel.
Father throws me back.
He casts more lines,
reels me in,
stunts my breath.
Ten, twelve, thirteen—
hooked, no struggle, no wriggle,
he throws me back.
Caught caught
caught
MY FINGERS MARROW-STRONG
tightly clasped the corner
of sanity’s tattered blanket
Sometimes I sucked the mitered edge
chewed it a bit to decide which
was less bitter sanity or denial
The blanket worn thin
pilled by the abrasions of
No No It can’t be true
I’d rather be nuts
Decades of denial opaque as one-way glass
till recall’s turmoil-years
thundered against my heart
It did It did happen
I recall my body’s silenced screams—
sphincter muscles needing to expel
his viscous sperm
had leaked some bloody shit
I spat spat spat him out
but never rid rectum vagina
mouth of Father
He tried to suck out my marrow
but it was unreachable
Fatigue-cold I need denial’s plush blanket
but tug on sanity’s woof and warp
thinned to sheer
Like a Dachau inmate
struggling to live
to spite her oppressor—
meekly defiant in the dark
I had firmly clasped
my satin corner of sanity
Now go public
with that Victory
DEAR MAYA
I’m writing to remind you of your promise —
my need to squander his soul has grown from embers
to a wildfire. Soon we must meet by the river.
I’ll stand under the highest arch of the bridge,
the moon’s light on my white scarf.
You’ll find me easily.
Don’t forget, bring your pouch with your blue
And lavender glass marbles. I practice the chant
you taught me. I say it nightly and when driving,
stopped by a red light or a slow-walking pedestrian.
I’m unmusical, as you know, but the rhythms
of my thoughts, a metronome behind my ribs,
my laugh now resonates; my skin now glows.
Friends ask what brought the change. I tell them
Om, Om, Moon-Shanti, and the marbles that I rub—
they just look at me.
I need you as my witness.
As you said, I took that photo,
him shortly before he sired me,
I shredded it with my teeth, spat on it
Till his image blurred ashen-gray.
When I fling him in the opaque sea
he’ll be more anonymous than a leaf in the wind.
You promised that then my voice will trail the waves,
soar like a dolphin.
As instructed: a prayer, and with seven drops
of water I’ll spill my decades back into the brine.
I’ll wait till an osprey dives for a fish.
Then I’ll scream to inhale the air before I was born.
My vibrato rising into foaming laughter,
I’ll flap my arms and finally
lullaby that child who slept
on a mattress of tufted fear.
ADMIRATION FOR SNOWY EGRETS
Pale, delicate,
ballerina poise,
patient as rocks.
Anorectic yet regal,
sky-gliders, sure-footed,
aiming with accuracy.
Yes, stalkers
of the small.
How else can I fill my hunger?
Anemic acrobat on a trapeze, 87
pounds at marriage, it took me decades
to learn how to snatch elusive fish
from muddy waters of my past.
Gathering into a history
that opened my eyes to
my primal hunger.
Unashamed
as egrets
I snatch
my share,
digest
it whole,
take no
more
than
sustenance.
ONE RED DAY TO THE NEXT
Our friends’ daughter
in a closed coffin—
I rerun their Christmas Eve party—
Pamela sitting on the floor
in red dress and red shoes,
her red smile fed by sweetness.
Dark eyes and white teeth
flash greetings to incoming guests
as she reads a gift-storybook
to her three-year-old Holly.
Crowding her parents’ buffet table—
homemade lasagna, oysters on the half-shell,
glazed ham, jumbo shrimp—
amid oriental rugs, bronze sculptures,
champagne glasses clink.
Friends are warmed
by the thermal weave of
sister, Mom, Dad, husband-John
filling our plates and glasses.
* * *
Christmas Day, en route from another party,
a driver, mad at John’s
middle finger response to taunts
shoots through Pamela’s window.
Radiance of a lit Christmas tree shorted.
Holly sits in a growing pool of red.
John screams, Help me, He shot my princess.
Someone help me. He shot my princess.
TO ANNE, MY TWIN
Father opening our bedroom door —
like World Trade Center images on TV,
entry of both planes, then the film reversed,
planes withdrawn, then reentry, withdrawal,
reentry, each successive replay,
the Towers exploding, crumbling —
I was never again to be whole.
Two weeks after 9/11,
I open your front door to celebrate
our double birthday, there, centered
on your foyer wall, our parents’ photo.
Anne, no neutrality towards my Osama
while you walk arm-in-arm with me.
I hung that picture only for
its youthful innocence, promise;
I would not hang a photo of him during his Father-years.
After the attack I needed protection,
I surrounded myself with family.
The litmus test of my loyalty
should not be that my feelings match yours.
Our parents were different with me.
You author a fable, The Ideal Family,
for all who enter your home.
After 9/11, I survey my ruins,
my view less obstructed than yours
more vigilant against myth.
Besides, in his youth he already was
paranoid, dictatorial. Later,
our terrorist father, his
repeated entries. . .
True, a small version of that
pre-wedding photo stood on my dresser
two hikers nestled on a bench in the Austrian Alps,
until a friend asked, How can you
display their picture?
TO ANNE, MY TWIN continued
Right hand pressed to your chest,
you cling to family loyalty
while admitting our playpen was filled
with sharp rules, not plush toys.
Stop saying I’m rageful.
When matches are tossed at me, I combust.
What if I hung that photo in my foyer
and in bold type wrote—RAPIST, PEDOPHILE, SADIST
under Karl, and-ENABLER-under Lily,
for all to see as they entered my home?
I wish a birthday gift for us, that I withdraw
my ultimatum, my desire to convert you.
I sift through the knowledge of who we are,
fissures in us, between us, gouged by our past.
Yes, dangers can lure one to myth.
With all that you have given to me
I should be able to feel your hand on my heart
even when you can’t pledge allegiance to truth.
WHEN FATHER WAS HOME
Afraid of him,
our German Shepherd seldom barked,
was quiet as I was.
Hands in my lap,
I sat staring at my Keds
on the gray living room carpet.
In the dinette, beyond his gaze—
softly my twin and I spoke or laughed.
He believed in child-silence;
our friends seldom visited.
Four decades of silence
reigned over his tombstone.
No sister, brother, friend, wife,
daughter ever visited.
No longer obedient as our dog,
I want to break the silence,
make a huge double-sided sign, staple it
to a high post above Father’s tombstone,
legible from a distance, to shout:
SADIST, PEDOPHILE!
IN RESPONSE TO THE—JUST JUBILATION GOSPEL CHOIR
I don’t understand how you kept your faith,
how you kept your song,
why you wanted to wake each day.
Your misery multiplied by all those around you
in the Middle Voyage, on the selling block,
in the fields; flesh torn by a whip,
your backs arched as you picked cotton,
long days slowed by sun’s heat.
I don’t understand how you kept your faith,
how you kept your song,
why you wanted to wake each day,
after being in a bed under your master’s weight.
I was not yet born, but I am perplexed that
some of my people also sang in the ghettos,
in the camps, and sing yet today.
I never saw God, never heard God,
never believed there was anyone who’d help me,
yet was willing to wake most days.
At home, super-obedient,
yet I could not learn how to stay beyond
the reach of father’s swinging hand.
Your abuse was public,
mine, mostly in the dark of night,
no one to witness, except my twin,
Daddy’s other girl, too loyal, too scared
to notice, though we shared a bedroom.
My misery lived inside the walls of home.
I woke each weekday knowing I’d escape—
walking to school with friends, and my twin.
IN RESPONSE TO THE—JUST JUBILATION GOSPEL CHOIR Continued
My reprieve also lived in the classroom,
all those kids with only one adult,
so few rules, and easy to be approved of—
do homework, raise a hand, read aloud,
and recess, a playground,
I could run in any direction.
Evenings, nights, weekends, time was slowed
by fear, but schooldays, outside, time raced by;
I was not alone, not silent, not numb.
Today, hearing your gospel songs,
still wondering how your songs and faith
survived, I realize my faith was in
the chalk-lined boxes we girls drew
on concrete to play hopscotch in,
faith in friends’ moms who gave us red or
yellow Jell-O, or ice cream though it wasn’t a holiday.
I heard my song in the rhythm of opposing jump ropes,
Double-Dutching, slap-slapping the ground,
leaving space for me to jump between;
my song in the squeak of the swing-seat
against the ropes I held as I kicked my feet higher,
higher, head back, feet toward blue sky,
and the sound—the pop of my hand
against a pink rubber ball,
I had faith in my swift legs running around
the bases, my heart pumping with fun.
I TOLD MY THERAPIST
Father always took everything
till I entered puberty
then I had more than zero power
he wanted what his hands couldn’t grab
What
He wanted affection
And you didn’t give it
I could have wretched not given affection
Did you say NO
No
What would have happened if you did
I said it once when I was three
that’s when he choked meLike an abscessed tooth
he forever extracted NO from my mouth
What did you do when he wanted affection
When he caressed my neck
lowered his hand down my back
I tensed to stone he saw felt it
Did you move away
No
You weren’t able to move away
No
I left Irwin’s office wondering why
heard Irwin’s non-accusation
then knew if I moved out of range
Father would have squashed my rebellious bonesHow did I get away with being stone
I’m not stone now
I’m a sparrow chick next to its dead mother
DR IRWIN
You say you had no clue-
my demeanor my words never hinted
at dissatisfaction hurt anger—
You imply a long withheld deception
You don’t get it
mere embers of anger lapped at my edges
Miss Vesuvius erupted with little warning
when my body screamed No more gut pain
and the mirror yelled No more hair loss
Stop treatment now
This in tandem with your time-shorting
lit the cold coals of Mother’s rejection
Which lit up the more than five years—
while therapy’s physical toll ravaged me
you were complacent as a rabbit munching carrots
Along the path a few times I proclaimed
my need to quit to let my body heal
You convinced me to stay but never explored why
my heart couldn’t let you rasp off
its calluses to reach my anger and tears
Your fury at my non-compliance
brokered your deafness and numbness
They light this fire under my feet
Your chronology is off I did not seethe for years
and deceive us about my feelings
Finally my body screamed No more
Your refusal to self-examine your distance
your ignoring my physical —
now raises my internal heat
and chases me out into the cold.
I HOPE YOUR SOUL CAN READ
I expected sadness
waited for grief
but felt glorious relief
Your death expanded my lungs
at 16 I could finally breathe
I needed you
to die
How deeply
your malignant mind ravaged me
Your death has forged
the key to my handcuffs
I unlocked memory I’m free of fear
Into a grape jelly jar I pour
all seven bottles of
my forbidden nail polish
and with my two-inch paint brush
write on your tombstone
graffiti for all to see
PERVERT FATHER
NO ONE NO ONE
VISITS YOU
I AM NOT THE GIRL NEXT DOOR
Average intelligence, not my aspiration,
but I wanted to be exactly average
inside a family, a carnation in a bouquet.
No likeness to the girl next door I was a leafy dandelion
in a field of purple zinnias,
doused in weed killer;
not a favored flower
fed wholesome nutrients, not placed
in a glazed ceramic vase
and proudly displayed,
but hidden in the back
among vines and a compost heap,
left as dinner for aphids.
I wanted to be a colorful,
many petaled flower,
noticed like others,
but grew pale, gnarled and bare,
twisted as the cork screw hazel,
with a short season of leaf and blossom.
HOVERING LIKE A MOTH
Often
I plan to clean out my drawers
give lots of clothes books
jewelry away
leave less mess for Herb to deal with
and only imply goodbye
or he’ll stop me —
I won’t give a clue to my twin Once I decide
I don’t want impediments Often
I change my mind
want to hang around
longer So much stolen time to make up for
Trying to fit
a steamer trunk of what-nots into an overnight bag
I cram everything into 24 hours
leaving no space to waste on sleep Often
night crawls back
into the air
I say Enough On favorite books and my poems
I’ll leave love notes
to apologize for this fatigueI need a resting placePerhaps
I should wait refracted light may
shine window panes on walls again
GRANDMA DIDN’T TELL ME
Had she known English,
she still would not have told
me or anyone,
Grandpa, who died before I was born,
before Hitler marched through Vienna,
was strange,
a meager provider for their nine children;
dark bread with butter often their dinner.
He was too busy playing cards, telling jokes
at cafes. At home he must have been
mean. Mean to how many?
Uncle Hans and Father
hated him. Strange. He must have been strange.
Why else would Father be a pedophile;
Aunt Kate marry a pedophile; Uncle Hans never
have children though he loved them; their sister, Carol,
kill herself as her womb began to bloom; Aunt Grete
threaten suicide, remain shrunken by Aunt Kate’s shadow?
Not one photo of him. No one ever said
his name. What did he die of? When?
At his graveside service did fictitious words
spin sugary masks as they did
at Father’s, Mother’s coffins?
The legacy of pedophilia—how many
generations back? Grandma didn’t
tell me Grandpa’s name.
FATHER SLAVERING
Rasp of his beard teeth on young vaginal flesh
he sounds like a pig at a trough
Tears surge but I hide them in my belly
Like snot dribbling from a snout
I cannot stem the flow
of moisture from below
Unspent tears swell my gut
as my seepage is tongued up
Voracious he eats quickly departs
to escape the sow he feels I’ve become
I cannot marry
a passionately sexual man
I find the reverse of this werewolf—
a gentle man whose passion
begins outside the bedroom
for music art
for children and me
His whistled tunes announce
his arrival home from work
Pushing me on a swing he sings
My Funny Valentine
But those child-years of oinking sometimes I still hate
the swine in the mirror
That never-a-child girl
is still trapped inside
I’ve been gathering tools
to pick the lock
When it’s safe I’ll let her out
SOME THINGS HE DID FELT FANTASTIC
His wet tongue
darting against my vulva
stroking my vulva
pushing my vulva forward back to the side
Oh my god
his lips surround-hugging sucking
Willingly I surrendered
pushed my torso
towards his mouth
tangoed with him
on taut violin strings
But without crescendo he left me dangling
above a bottomless want
for that delicate frenzied touch
The most despicable man in my world
Father the incest pusher
hooked me
Onn Incest Incest and more
Yet his lips on mine
his tongue in my mouth leaked arsenic
caused nausea to rise
Each muscle in his body my enemy
each hair and follicle another insult
Oh but his mouth on my vulva
his wet tongue careening carousing around my labia
pushing deep inside
Devil’s Magic Devil’s Magic
NYMPHOMANIAC
My vagina shrieks
I hear my tunnel echo
feel the blisters pull
of yesterdays
from Father’s gritty touch
Genitals
purposely roused and left remain
aroused
yawn for him
Those rare times when not
rasped by beard
or clasped in teeth
vagina wept
for tongue for him
and did not know why hunger
Leaping from his grave
he stampedes my sleep
My starving cry repeats
implies
there’s something wrong with me
such sateless appetite
AN UNUSUAL APPETITE
Asked to climb inside the body
of a hunger-crazed lion to look out through his eyes,
I say No. Never. I don’t want to see,
hear, feel his toying with his prey,
claws alternately retracted, extended,
swat, swat, swat; his tail flailing;
sandpaper-tongue lapping smooth
springbok underbelly, genitalia.
But then I shake my regal mane,
canines, incisors, gently, ungently, urgently
nip the fawn body stiffening to fear-rigid,
my shank hardens. A sudden shift,
her body pliant.
In a throbbing, frenzied rage
lion-me ejaculates.
Seconds later fawn flesh
and slimed vegetation cool my limbs,
I extract my claws
and pad across the den,
past the fawn feigning death,
enter my mate’s lair, or
turn back, hunger renewed,
past the silent one, to the whimperer.
My tongue strokes her soft throat.
Her muscles, tendons tense, as though
the hardening shank of a rival.
Blood pumps into my groin, my paws graze
her sealed jaw, claws of my right paw
extend, snap the hasp of her jaw.
As I pump-pound the recesses of her mouth
her small teeth scrape me; each in, out,
like her too tight anus.
In a cascading gush I fill
the back of her throat, then leave.
Sometimes,
the flash sight of this fear-frozen fawn
catching my scent
urges me on,
before her tawny body recedes into reeds. Stanza Break
AN UNUSUAL APPETITE Continued
In pre-pounce stance,
like a giant yawn, my legs unhinge
into a rapid stride.
Her fur in my teeth,
I shake my head left, right, left, right.
Then settle upon her—
frail bones splaying flat
as sapling branches of a banyan.
Her flapping heart,
birch leaves in a breeze,
flap, flap, her short breaths.
Then lift myself off.
OUR IMMUNE SYSTEM IS
Asthmatic bronchitis, infectious hepatitis, ulcerative colitis, flu, typhoid fever, costochondritis, kidney infections, flu, osteomyelitis, peritonsillitis, Sjogren syndrome, flu, hypoglycemia, rhinitus,
sinusitis, flu, thyroid cancer and diabetes —
the visible gifts from Father.
Protracted fear and rage,
the unseen killers inseminated into me—
their accrued psychic harm
is obvious to many.
Not so with brain damage—
prolonged stress induced
high glucocorticoid levels,
neuron loss in my hippocampus,
shrank the seat of memory.
Had I not buried fear and rage,
had I been brave enough to recall each rape,
had I murdered my psychic killer’s power
by going public,
my immune system would not
have succumbed.
Letting buried memories
and feelings secrete hormones
to do their frantic work at night,
magnified, extended the rapist’s
thrust long after his death.
Harm to mouth, vagina, anus,
was just the beginning.
Rapists invade each cell
and educate the body,
yield a doctorate in abuse.
Truces occur but scars remain
in the vestiges of our being.
Rape is a Grand Larceny
of the self
and the immune system,
but instinct for homeostasis
exists within us.
To retrain my nervous system
I do yoga, meditate, and
write, write, write.
IT’S TAKEN FIVE DECADES
Half a century
for her neck
to again become a neck
That soft flesh
denied kisses caresses
warmth of a turtleneck
No jewels
around her throat
it has had to be free
Of those two hands
that throttled her
three-year-old being
She still
sleeps on her side
arms crossed under her chin
But now in the cool
and warming feel of silk
she can parade chic
And her husband
dares kiss the curve
where neck and shoulder merge
Places his wide palm
below the back of her head
fingers curling forward
IT’S TAKEN FIVE DECADES
Half a century
for her neck
to again become a neck
That soft flesh
denied kisses caresses
warmth of a turtleneck
No jewels
around her throat
it has had to be free
Of those two hands
that throttled her
three-year-old being
She still
sleeps on her side
arms crossed under her chin
But now in the cool
and warming feel of silk
she can parade chic
And her husband
dares kiss the curve
where neck and shoulder merge
Places his wide palm
below the back of her head
fingers curling forward
TEARLESS
Professor Marie I must ask
for the strangest favor
you know the origin of tears
Your heart was also bruised
adult weight on child
pressed into warp and weft
The other day I knocked
on your office door
pushed it open
Like a mother-bird
you flew up and wound
your wings around me
Falling into your smile I knew
if you taught me how to cry
I would not evanesce
In one try I learned to skate
to jump rope swing from a trapeze
I’m a serious student can you teach me
The first time is the hardest
they say after that I think
I can do it on my own
For ten years I’ve practiced
at times a few drops
outside corners of my eyes
Terror
that hundred-mouthed giant
had sucked all the rain from the sky
Father’s ban on tears
still parches that
dehydrated child inside
I must water her pinafore-years
poodle-appliqued-skirt-years
backwards-cardigan and slit-skirt-years Stanza Break
TEARLESS Continued
A flightless cassowary
dreaming of air currents
a desert cactus seeking floral status
Your arms your smile
might water my arid roots
make tears bloom as forget-me-nots
A BASKET OF CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES
as thanks Dear husband
professors, doctor and twin.
Herb, my man, you let me fling
tons of time and money at doctors,
on classes, on books, and patiently,
though you’re sated on verse
you critique my work.
A homework-widower,
you cook, even clean a little,
and still think I’m beautiful.
Now Professors, I drop all
formality of title—
Dear friends, you have taught me
the subtlety of a curled leaf,
directness of a bearded iris,
the layering of rose petals.
Nondita, my mentor, you took me
under your wing, touched my hand,
said, I know you can, and promised
I’d add much to your class.
Bill, in body not always present,
afloat, enroute from Arizona to New York,
stuck in traffic, Laguardia to Manhattan,
or overwrought, and me, forgotten,
yet your spirit, selection of readings,
your pen, your voice long-distance
still strengthened my pulse.
Marie, an adjunct, not paid to tutor,
you give me and give me gifts,
your thoughts, your heart;
my soul-sister,
you’ve taken me nearest my tears.
Richard, most recent member
in this ad hoc quilting bee,
you tailored my corners with humor
and kindness, embolden my flame stitch
A BASKET OF CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES Continued
with golden yarn. You invited me
into your home at Hunter,
stitched epaulets to my muslin.
Together you all embroidered
awards around my scars.
I thank another, non-Hunter,
Ira, tenacious as a pitbull,
patient as Mother Teresa,
brave enough to venture
into the gnarled jungle of my mind.
You’ve combed smooth tangled roots,
plucked out toxic anger and pain,
clearing room for thought.
And thank you Anne, my twin,
paying for my first writing class
to baste my life with poetry,
kvelling when things go well for me,
for your joy in hearing my heart
relinquish its arrhythmic taunt.
Last but not least—Thank you
Hunter/English: Audre Lorde,
Blanche Colton Williams,
Sylvia Faulkner, for your work
and your accolades
that adorn my walls.
ANOTHER WRITERS’ RETREAT
Again, I’m the desert plant
in a lush temperate clime,
I’m a paper peony,
in a cluster of flowers
emitting perfume,
the blank page in a novel.
My hippocampus smaller
than an apple seed,
I remember less than
an Alzheimer victim.
I’m a woman without a tongue,
who cannot say if
I saw this film or read that book.
I could ask my husband
but he’s not here,
so I sit and listen
to the absence in my mind.
I’m no longer a limping alien
like last time,
but I’m a member
without recall,
in a clutch of writers,
yet I find friends
who don’t notice,
or accept me as I am,
a woman who writes from her heart,
not from her shrunken brain.
They say I am brave,
and like what I write.
I glide differently from them,
but I skim the water, then fly
in their V formation.
DEAR DR. OLIVER SACKS
You have studied the gray
that matters inside our heads.
Like an adopted child who needs
to learn who its real parents are,
I search for answers in my hunt
for most of my hippocampus—
when it shrank,
are neurons missing?
Can you help me on my quest?
In your circle of scientists
are any studying that small mass
that holds much of memory
and our GPS? Would they study mine?
I turn one corner then another
on a street, in a mall, a train station
and I’m more bewildered than
a three-year-old about
how to reach my destination.
I close a book that played
and fought with my heart,
and all but traces disappear
into the black hole
that sucks up each memory file.
After watching a movie with friends
I can discuss a few things,
but one day later it’s as if
I had not seen the film.
As those orphans who seek the secret
of why their parents discarded them,
I yearn to know how it happened,
what acids or hormones gobbled up
my brain cells. Why do children
growing up in a war zone still have theirs?
Was mine decimated by the grenades
Father planted inside
my bedroom?
Most of all I want to know—
with stem cell research is there any chance
of re-growing my hippocampus?
SKELETONS DANGLING IN SLEEP
Terror propels me
out of bed
I check my neck in the mirror
Macrame flesh mud-brown center
taut dark strings radiating
to a wide-rimmed oval
is erased by daylight
I step cautiously
through each minute of the day
my body knotted sinew
my blood clotted jumping-beans
Last week I heard a poet—
tiny delicate braids
twined ‘round her head
Angered by her cat
she grabbed its back legs
yanked them apart
pulled its tail straight out
About to shove
her lit cigarette
up its ass
suddenly she saw
her father’s movements
Her sound-arrows
rattle skeletons
dangling
in sleep’s closet
Each morning
their St. Vitus’s dance shakes me
awake with bizarre thoughts
parching my mouth and eyes
I cannot stand
sounds that come from behind
my husband touching
the bottom of my spine
WHY DON’T DOCTORS KNOW? I Genie-Born 11/4/70
Genie, the wild child,
was found at thirteen, still in diapers
and tied to the potty in her bedroom,
no curtains, pictures, anything
for her eyes to eat.
My straps were internal,
around my mind and heart.
Skinny she was,
her feet could barely step,
legs bent so long on the potty.
Her arms worked, eyes sort of worked,
her voice was swallowed years ago.
Silent as me, I thought,
when Father did sex things.
Hers, no sex, just beatings. Mine did beatings
but I had the world outside my room, outside
my house. She had a potty. When they found
her, (miracle angel face, wide-eyed curious,
with caution-knit brow), she soon laughed,
her hungry hands touched, touched my pulse
as she, like a blind child, finger-surveyed
objects. Her eyes had never seen
anything but her body, four walls, a crib
she was often not allowed to sleep in, her
potty and bare floor. I think she too did
not know how, was forbidden to cry. Her ears,
never word-fed, could not teach her tongue Ma Ma,
No. All I want is to hold her, hug her,
rock her, as I wanted all
those years to be held. How naked
she must have felt, no humans except for
beatings. In my mother’s womb my twin and I
shared fluid space, then shared a bedroom.
She was deaf and blind as the floral
wallpaper to Father’s presence.
When doctors took Genie in she filled a long shelf
with glasses of liquid, as do others like her.
Doctors don’t know why. But it’s their piggy bank
for future thirsts. Thirst hurts worse than hunger—
dry eyes hard to blink, no tears, mouth parched;
one’s heart shrivels, its beat weakens. Doctors
are perplexed by her rabbit-walk. Let them sit
years on a potty, to learn, legs don’t unfold
easily. Why don’t experts hire an abuse survivor
WHY DON’T DOCTORS KNOW? Continued
We know what they don’t. NIMH funding gone,
institutionalized, stuffed back into a bottle,
Genie how do you live?
II
Genie and I haven’t met but we know wordless.
This is what she wanted to say—
Doctors are stupid. First they want me,
a newly discovered plant to study. They put me under
their microscope, dissect me; they get famous, tv,
radio, talk tours and government checks.
They talk gentle, give me clothes, food, toys.
Why no kids to play with, small ones so I feel big?
Every day they teach, teach words.
I only want my baby doll. Why don’t they
teach me mommy things, hugging, rocking
my baby doll. They teach me how to dress,
tie my shoes. Now I teach my girl doll
all I know, even how to stamp her feet.
They give me tests they call games.
I don’t care what shape fits into another.
I don’t want electrodes on my brain.
I want a puppy who won’t think I’m strange.
A puppy to wash my face. A puppy I can scold.
Why don’t experts know? Why switch me from house to house?
I’m no postage stamp to be glued and sent anywhere.
They pretend they care, then send me to the woman
they call my mother. She never stopped the man.
Never untied me. Never took me out of that room.
Don’t experts know, she’s no mommy? That man
they call my father, he shot himself dead when
police found me. What does his wife know about hugs, songs?
Lullabies have words. They don’t teach her mommy things,
just ship me back to her, then she too gets rid of me.
They test me for crazy. Adults are crazy or retarded. One says
I’m retarded, my brain waves show a sleep pattern. What
did he think he’d find in a starved brain? Where could it go,
trapped inside four walls with me? How long
can an empty brain stay awake? They say
a brain of a blind, deaf, mute child
well fed with touch, could stay awake.
Lock that expert in my room, no sound, no light, no touch.
Watch his fingertips grow bored. How long till his
well-schooled brain sleeps? These mind doctors,
when dollars stop they pack me off
WHY DON’T DOCTORS KNOW? Continued
to a foster home. I’m beaten for vomiting.
Doctors healed me then scissored me open.
Nothing will ever, ever again come out of my mouth.
Only my bottom. Why would I talk to retarded or crazy?
Maybe a puppy who doesn’t make promises.
Experts are too dumb to know a puppy and I could talk
when no one is around to eavesdrop.
YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND
MY FEAR OF MURDER
Sometimes you ask Why murder
and seem to think
I’m distorting
Yes the spankings only stung my flesh
but were they preludes
to his raising the ante
After the choking I never knew
if Poker-Player-Father was bluffing
or was going to call in all the chips
If a gun is placed against your temple
once that’s enough
to always fear the next
Yet you ask
But he didn’t kill you
why are you afraid of murder
I don’t understand your question
YOU GOT IT
Your Lord
And when you said jump,
I did,
when you said No
I cowered,
when you raised your arm,
I flinched.
Your Lord
Then I grew talons,
a beak and wings,
I tore at your flesh,
and stuck it in
to your eyes and ears.
Your Lord
TO DEFEND I AVOID
Standing at the edge of tide-fringed waves
I can’t shake my dislike for the sea
I avoid the stuttering gunfire of the world
I’m not informed don’t read newspapers magazines
watch violent films
Childhood — one long-loud lie of silence
Anything loud even Mozart rivets my spine
I hate the tuxedoed-lies of advertisers
their raised volume
I remote them mute or zap them off
Politicians spike truth
crooks klept businessmen abuse addicts act out
I fear the rejects’ rage and the wrath of paranoids
But my avoidance list has shortened
a necklace or scarf can touch my throat —
I lie in bed belly up legs apart arms overhead
muscles relaxed
My mind can run amok on a page
my pen records from the gut
my paper-words scream hyena-loud
I may rent Chinatown —
before recall sucked my eyes dry
that film made me cry like a child
whose helium-balloon flew to the clouds
Perhaps I’ll discard my pen name
admit who I am
WHAT GOOD IS A MIND WITHOUT A BODY
BLOSSOMS WITHOUT BRANCHES
I must gather my limbs
entwine them hold my mind
away from the reaper for a while
Plug wounds that ooze sap
post scarecrows to keep night’s scavengers at bay
let dreams paint willow buds
forsythia unfurl sumac
I need the dark behind eyelids
a blanket of thoughtless snow
to silence childhood
feed me drop by melted drop
of nitrogen for renewal
Nine consecutive years of harvesting
row upon row of furrowed fear
thoughts elusive as wind-swept dust
and the shimmer of vermilion anger
Digging deep into my soil
depletes nutrients
my reserves are gone
it is fallow-time
WORDS
Mother’s barely grazed my ears
Father’s stung like wasps
parental words were never soft
Audible or written
they could puncture
the membrane confining recall
I crept into a cave of silence
muffled grown-up voices
songs music hid from books
Child-words were flannel
wound ‘round me
layers between skin
and the chill of silence
till internal pressure hissed
childhood through my pen
and words formed flesh
for my adult frame
My eyes like two hungry mouths
sought poems of others
spun my notched words
into strands of tweed or silk
Now I wear audible taffeta phrases
plush velvet paragraphs
to color me outline my form
Substantiate my shadow
WRITE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
My journal pen races across the paper, left to right, top to bottom. I free-write edge to edge. Margins are a waste
of precious space. I need to use every inch or will run out of writing surfaces. So much jammed inside my head,
waiting decades to pounce on the page, I can’t squander even the top borders — sky for my writing. I need acres
of white to fill with my atmosphere, topography, lightning rage, stalking monsters, yearnings for hammocked
serenity. No room to record my hieroglyphs. I’d be caught inside my head, feelings swelling, festering,
speechless again. I waste plenty but not paper. I recycle reams of it, all piled in the bin to be reused for shopping
lists, note paper, wrapping paper, as raffia to stuff into cartons. Imagine a paper-less world—as if our tongues had
been routed out. Our hidden selves would find no voice except on graffitied walls.
DEAR ANDREA
A victim of misdiagnosed post-partum
psychosis
The moment I heard that you submerged
all five heads of your kids
in that porcelain womb
I wanted you DEAD.
Dead as I wanted my Octopus-Father.
Each summer he lashed his arms around me,
anchored me in the thrashing surf
of Jones Beach.
Then my heart heard yours
lost in the woods
torrid days, moonless nights,
crawling in brambled circles.
Your doctors held the compass
but like my mother, they pretended
you stood at the edge of the woods,
could walk the visible path
out.
Each refused to admit that a parent might,
but Father did,
you did.
SHE SAID, YOU’LL RECOGNIZE ME; I’M VERY SHORT
“So am I, five foot one and a half.”
“That’s a real height. I’m short.”
“Well, I’ll be wearing a black skirt
and yellow blouse, easy to spot. See you at noon.”
On a Central Park bench an orthodox Jew wearing a schtetl,
and I who avoid religion, talk like sisters,
two crushed flowers that survived
numerous bulldozings of our terrain.
In a New York Times interview Bronia said,
“. . . nothing induced me to cry. I want to
howl and howl, to infinity.”
Hoping we could teach each other how to cry,
I sent my poems to her via the Times.
She loved them and is eager to learn.
Strolling to a cafe, towering over Bronia, I silently wonder,
did Auschwitz starvation determine her height,
a tiny 12-year-old cattle-carred into the camp?
She says, “My hunger began at 10. Looking a bit Aryan,
I became a smuggler, left the Jewish Quarter
to barter goods for my family’s food. Then Auschwitz,
one slice of sawdust bread, one bowl of watery soup daily.”
Steamy coffee mingles with July humidity. We hurriedly take
turns, disclose what cemented our tear ducts shut. I tell of
father’s pseudo-drownings, the time he choked me. She says,
“At war’s end, few children walked or were carried out of camps.”
Numbers on Bronia’s left arm are larger than any I’ve seen;
she’s grown a lot since that branding. I’d have had my arm
untattooed, but incest survivor shame is imbedded below the skin.
Our exchanges, precise as radar, beam through the fog of tact.
“How do you know your sudden recall of child abuse is real?”
I answer, “My twin sister shared the room, she heard him in my bed.”
Bronia says, “Your poems made me cry the second time I read them.”
Her compassion moistens my eyes. I’m afraid to ask,
a few drops or real tears?
Hints of strain in Bronia’s voice are smoothed by its lilt.
Her zest is contagious. She sounds like twenty, not seventy.
How did she keep her vocal chords clean
of the ashes she breathed?
SHE SAID, YOU’LL RECOGNIZE ME; I’M VERY SHORT Continued
She thinks being raped and beaten by a father from age three on
is worse than starving in filth and cold, facing likely death,
watching others be killed. I’m stunned, I’d thought
she might object to my connecting my horrors to hers.
Fear that my father might choke me again or drown me, she feels
built stronger dams against tears than what Nazis did to her.
Perhaps imagining the plight of others as worse
is a sliver of light in our boarded-up cell.
DOCTOR
WHEN YOU SPEAK
I sense your vibrations
know where you are
Always
in silence
Father entered
my bedroom
ten claws dragged me
across the bed
Always amid silence
his whisper-roars
punctured the air
with commands and threats
He ripped open my clenched arms and legs
did things and left
Doctor when you sit
shrouded in muteness
your paws pressed to your lips
I know soon I’ll be chewed
and spat out
When you speak
the vibrations
are sunlight
Your hulking shadow
shrinks
reshapes
into a lamb
WHILE RECLINING
dentist’s torso over mine
lip held/stretched
hands push press
deep in my mouth
ultrasonic drill
water’s forceful spray
Oral surgery
brings IT back
Father forcing
thrusting
tearing mouth
flooding throat
I conjure up
therapist’s sweet face
his sonorous voice
Pulse slows
dentist does
his dirty work
MORE SENSITIVE THAN BRAILLE FINGERS
I teach
your
silk-velvet-
cock
the contours of my face
close my eyes
brush you
with my lashes
Slide you
against my cheek
around my lips around
lick the underside
up to tip
tongue-swirl gently
suck
Down my neck I guide you
feed your cock
the map of my body
draw a longitudinal-line
from my clavicle
south to navel
up east west
rub press
my nipples
As though connected
groin to mouth and sometimes limbs
nipples and clit bloom
Making sure your blind cock
memorizes
I slide-press you
against my pubis clitoris
With my vagina’s Ohs
I scent you
tease you almost
into around
I want to
but can’t wait
slide you
fit
A deep breath
motionless silent
before we shimmer
WITHOUT MY TWIN WHO WOULD I BE?
Now I wonder, the miracle of survival,
like my friend hiding in a haystack
as a Nazi searched with a pitchfork.
Without Anne I’d be a spinster
or in an institution.
We shared a womb, a crib, stroller and playpen.
We had tugs of war, hair pulling, but mostly
we gibberished, and intertwined limbs.
I was the runt, Anne, my protector.
Candies didn’t exist in our house
but mounded dishes at our Aunts’.
Shy, arms pressed tight to my sides,
I couldn’t stretch to reach the crystal bowls.
Anne took enough for both.
When Father grew meaner,
my behind too sore to sit on,
Anne shut out sound so hard,
her ears oozed pain and pus.
I drenched my pillow with whispered sobs.
We retreated. She into blindness, deafness,
I into numbness, or vanished
till he left our room,
and breath re-inflated me.
My mind forgot, my body did not.
Then teenaged boys, hugs and kisses—
I held cupid’s arrow, had wooing power;
weapons of love strengthened me.
Incested girls often trade in their minds
to keep their bodies; we can’t keep both.
I kept my mind;
my body went miles away.
Sixteen years under Father’s rule,
then merciful death interred him.
Infections fierce as Father,
sentenced me to hospital stays
till I listened, penned and spoke.
It took decades to turn
fluorescent lights on home,
and remind myself—
Anne and I taught each other
the touch of feathers, of sunlight.
WITHOUT MY TWIN WHO WOULD I BE?
Now I wonder, the miracle of survival,
like my friend hiding in a haystack
as a Nazi searched with a pitchfork.
Without Anne I’d be a spinster
or in an institution.
We shared a womb, a crib, stroller and playpen.
We had tugs of war, hair pulling, but mostly
we gibberished, and intertwined limbs.
I was the runt, Anne, my protector.
Candies didn’t exist in our house
but mounded dishes at our Aunts’.
Shy, arms pressed tight to my sides,
I couldn’t stretch to reach the crystal bowls.
Anne took enough for both.
When Father grew meaner,
my behind too sore to sit on,
Anne shut out sound so hard,
her ears oozed pain and pus.
I drenched my pillow with whispered sobs.
We retreated. She into blindness, deafness,
I into numbness, or vanished
till he left our room,
and breath re-inflated me.
My mind forgot, my body did not.
Then teenaged boys, hugs and kisses—
I held cupid’s arrow, had wooing power;
weapons of love strengthened me.
Incested girls often trade in their minds
to keep their bodies; we can’t keep both.
I kept my mind;
my body went miles away.
Sixteen years under Father’s rule,
then merciful death interred him.
Infections fierce as Father,
sentenced me to hospital stays
till I listened, penned and spoke.
It took decades to turn
fluorescent lights on home,
and remind myself—
Anne and I taught each other
the touch of feathers, of sunlight.
THE HEAT OF ANALYSIS Cont.
Deprivation, accusation, mirrors of childhood sometimes light the fuse
that set off the erotic bomb, a craving for cruel and sensuous touch, but
the more your quills puncture like Father’s, the more I need to escape.
Before I’m bald and my intestines explode I must leave. At 12,
I was chained to home, but your tether can’t hold me.
And now a wolf springs at my throat, thyroid cancer,
amid my wrenching last week’s sessions. The pre, and I’m sure
post op nightmares, going it alone because you shoved me out the door
while conning yourself that I’m a quitter.
You were the first and only one undaunted by Father’s sadism,
a detective with woodpecker determination and heron patience
plucking out information. For that I owe you. But for 5 1/2 years
of my biweekly, then triweekly sessions, from your errors, like a mole
you hurriedly burrow away and stay in your tunnel.
Perhaps you see me as, fear me as, the siren in a red dress.
To combat my misconstrued retreats you skunk the air with rejection,
while I think myself strange, never learning to cry.
Moments when your x-ray vision decodes me, my heart and groin yearn
to reach across the room. But mostly you wear goggles as you spin
this temptress into rags of reticence. How can I say— You thwart
my outstretched arms, my childish clinging? How can I surrender
to you as a ballerina, trust you’ll catch me if I cry?
You deem this resistance, an insurrection to your delving,
my desire to demean your erection.
But you make yourself impotent,
not examining your shrinking my vocal chords, blocking my tear ducts.
Doctor, why no comfort-words to unclog my river of thoughts and tears?
You choose bat-blindness, refuse to use your sonar to sense your
closeness to father: abuser, blamer, feeling innocent.
Yes, you finally succeed tapping into the aorta of my anger.
Ceiling-high, I heap your unlove on top of Mother’s and Father’s.
My anger yeasted by hurt and want brews hotter than sex,
has the power of bonsai roots fighting against constraints.
So I slam therapy’s door, hammer it shut with penny nails
and a dead-bolt lock. I won’t ever offer myself up
for more rejection, for my doctor to say
about my coaxed reticence, less than human.
THE HEAT OF ANALYSIS Cont.
IV ON THE OTHER SIDE OF YOUR DOOR
In my absence we both grow more real. I gain moxie. No longer fearing
you’ll ransack me for my anger-words, I send this crow-voice poem
and attached note: Fear-tied, my tongue never lacerated Father,
but today, through the teeth of my pen I hiss
and spit my acid at you. I stamp this poem and post it,
hoping it eats holes in your goggles,
erodes your denials, and gouges pitted scars
in your ego’s complexion.
Regretting the way our mutual efforts end, you read my stridency,
offer one, then a couple more non-fee meetings
to iron some of our creases.
My voice floats up from the corners, Your lack of connection
inflates your perception of my writing skills—compensation
for making me cower instead of expanding my vocal repertoire.
In response to my unreturned fondness for you, you say, That was
an unfortunate lack of mirroring. . . . . . You deserve the best.
No longer your patient, you toss embracing words at me
as you close your door. But my words blaze red.
MY WRITING GROWS WILD AS A VINE
Speedy and tenacious as bittersweet,
it strangles blossoms of polite charm that concealed
toxic flora in our Home Sweet Home, thriving beneath
lovely lace doilies, Austrian crystal and Rosenthal China.
Last week my older sister cut
a fable out of invisible cloth:
Mother daily hung all our bed linens out to air.
I was embarrassed; our neighbors never did that.
My twin and I know
only when washed
did the linens hang from a clothesline
in the garden to be bleached by the sun.
Did big sister spin this yarn
on the wheel of her mind to cleanse
the stains she and Mother refused to see
when Father and brother-in-law soiled
on a daughter’s sheets
THE METAPHOR OF ILLNESS
Submission beaten into my young body,
self-defense ringed out of my neck,
by age three I lost all tools to oppose.
* * *
Mt. Sinai’s Chief Dental Surgeon
supervises, as his student hacks
at my impacted wisdom tooth.
Dr. Cranin returns to see the progress—removes
the wrongly inserted intravenous and corrects it.
Occasionally he checks back in;
ninety minutes later he completes two extractions.
A month of days crawls by,
my mouth still opens less than an inch,
Dr. Cranin says, It’s just psychic. Chew bubble gum.
Two more months, two more dentists, a jaw specialist,
no healing or diagnosis.
I sink deeper into pain and my tear-soaked pillow,
assessing myself mentally ill.
Zombie-like I cook and care for two preschoolers.
As fall tinges summer, throat pain rivals jaw pain,
my voice peeps like a chick’s. I drag one heavy
leg in front of the other, to my internist.
A blood test—instant hospital admission.
An x-ray technician pries my swollen jaw apart,
places film on the wound. The head and neck surgeon says,
You have a fifty percent chance of surviving
this jaw bone infection that has spread.
If you make it through the next twenty-four hours
you’ll soon walk out from here. I won’t get involved,
but you should sue the dental surgeon.
Don’t ask me to testify. I become incoherent for two days,
than rally toward health.
* * *
Two decades later I discover,
my body knew what my mind buried—
that student’s assault echoed Father’s oral rapes
when Dr. Cranin, like Mother, absented himself.
More than tears, that surgeon incited a flood
of white blood cells that nested in my jaw.
INTRANSIGENT WOUNDS
At home the child was unnoticed
as a dust mite
except when sought
for the punishment of her flesh.
Then came her lover-husband’s
amazing gaze at her,
so why does she stay so hungry
that even vats of chocolate
don’t sate her?
A teacher once said—
After a parched childhood,
learning to absorb hugs
remains elusive as a candied apple
dangling on a string.
Early love-hunger
persistent as dandelions,
remains un-fillable.
Decades have passed
yet she feels truncated—
partial amputation of her psyche
echoes with phantom pain.
TRAPPED
My ten day silent meditation retreat—
remnants of old wounds shout
through shafts of body and mind
A groin pull for three days thwarts sleep
too much lotus sitting?
Next salivary gland pain
another stone?
Next simultaneous knife pains
vagina rectum
hemorrhoids?
Next a glass bomb explodes
in my vagina Two words fly
into my brain Japanese beetles
*****
The summer my big sister got polio
paralyzed trapped in an iron lung
I was seven and trapped
and murdered hundreds of beetles
My sister’s polio transformed Mother
to a statue staring into empty space
celibate I’m sure she thought sex ugly
Beetles ravaged roses in our garden
ate holes in their velvety flesh
I hammered nail-holes in metal lids
and trapped them in jelly jars
mayonnaise jars
They smothered slowly
in their hard dark shells
in a crowded glass coffin
Each beetle was Father
For what felt like glass shards
rammed in my vagina
I smothered him hundreds of times
in jelly and mayonnaise jars
A FEW WORDS AND BITS OF DESSERT
Because you listen with more accuracy
than tape recorders without nuance
and you often join puzzle pieces
before I recognize their implied shape
because my ghosts of rage and terror don’t
shut your eyes or ears to my unchildhood—
with you as witness I grow brave enough
to enter an unknown land of silence
A ten-day meditation retreat—No
talking reading writing radio no
eye contact Obedience strict attention
to my leader twelve hours a day
After six days of déja vu submission
surrender installs a larynx in my flesh
Groin shrieks (from sitting lotus?) soon
an explosion of glass splinters in my
vagina It roars louder than ten lions
On the eighth day of silence I listen
to the child screaming and pushing inside
the twenty-seven foot tunnel of my guts—
silent admission anesthetizes pain
Did admission and I expel Father
But a month later I tell you I again need the speed
of a cheetah to out-run Father Pain comes
and goes a common-law-partner quieter
Daffodils now yellow the ground I claim—
three months ago expelled into the open air
and we have transformed Monster into
a dead man disenfranchised as vapor
Because you are so good at shaping smoke
into mirrors I now see more clearly
but still need time to break the night-habit
yet expect my pit bull jaws to unclench
And since I’m a good dessert maker here for you
chocolate-dipped apricots and halvah
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