In the thicket, a berry stained thigh slides over a branch. I am waiting for you to feed me. I am waiting to hear the drum of your coming to my hunger. Search the black bare earth for a strand of my hair. I am curled up. Whisper, Breathe so close that it is not close enough. I will come unraveled just so I can tie you up. Climb on you to find your mouth. I cannot catch your breath. I can only stay here, taking one after the next.
My vision is blurred so that all is ripe. Even the sour angry men blend into soft pink. I hold the quiet like a yellow pad of butter on my tongue. My Father’s eyes that hiss like the locust, blend into the trees. He is driven and quick, can catch fire in a word. Only in forgetfulness will he tell me the truth. His tales high as trees make dried leaves of the birds, birds that fall. I gather the cracked brown dust of summer, the bug eaten leaves are my bread, the butter in my mouth is this calm.
I’ve grown teeth to grind away the passion in my sleep. My muscles hard as boats push the waves away, the waves that would wake me up, to my body in the harbor, to the houses tied in rows, to roads that lead away from bed, the ocean.
All the little voices, they are small and blue, and they crawl in the bathrooms where no one is asking. Where no one is asking, they stretch on the floors and they do all the asking. They beg on their backs for a god in the ceilings, to take from their mouths the poisonous blue. To pull up the ground through their soft yellow bellies. They beg to lay down on floors, where no one is looking. they beg to be cleaned off the floors while no one is watching. To emerge from the wounds with skin that shows nothing. Skin to seal, not to show. Look for the tails of little moons, hiding violent blue so small you will wonder. Under the doors, they slip under the floors. You will never know them in your shoes. You would have to have nothing to walk that far without any shoes. You will know something is missing, while they are in the next room washing your dishes. You will ignore them to ponder what you are missing. They live in the bathroom with a woman in a yellow rubber glove. If you knew who was missing, you would take her hand from the toilet, and pull off that glove. She would smile when you turned up her palm to study her hand. She is the map of who is missing. Trace her steps from the bathroom to the door.
My sisters loom around her like hungry birds. I cannot even see my mother, she is lost in the crowd of their bodies, closing in on her to feed on her pity. Mother mother. I am out in the distance, I cannot compete will slow suffocating sadness. I cannot bury your body with my own. I cannot appeal to your pity with eyes that see, that see the fog of your kindness swallow up better things. I am a lonely daughter, a stem like the gold of the wind through the wheat. Brittle as fire. I scare your love from me with thunder that I cannot muster for any other.
I woke up from frozen rivers. I had been looking into holes in the ice, discovering that every time I come here, I have another breakthrough.
Into the heart of a tight rubber ball there is only one letter that will fit. The letter H, for Hannah. For Hannah’s heart is tight like a rubber ball in my hand, and down I will throw it to bring it back, hard so it rises to the sky, or it will tumble and roll away, into the dark.
Take the pennies out of me. The metal blood taste in my mouth would scare off anyone, and the weight worth nothing. Worth maybe just a little fun. Empty me on the concrete so I can shine a little. Clean at last, after all the dirt is on the ground. I will lay under the shower head until I am numb. Let the hooks of the shower curtain slip down the end of the rod. Hook the curtain to my back. A cape to wear for my sisters who are waiting to see my body so they can feed on it like death.
Rock hard you watch my legs wilt. You roll over like a cement truck, laying a light, cold absence. You are always old, you are never old. You were the only witness to my face, upturned, dripping in the eyes, mouth of a flower. And you didn’t love me. You gave me the memory of myself, asking for myself, but you in between would mediate nothing. And now you laugh at me, for expecting something more, like all the other girls buried under highways. You can see the day where I lay quiet as you, under your cement. You can see me when I tried to believe there was a witness to my belief. For 25 minutes, I stood under you hoping the length of time would earn me favors. My loyalty to what you stood for. That length of time was as meaningless then as is is now, but I still remember it. It is still an empty place, where the only light was you.
I am so sad. The urges waste me in their path. No lessons to return to. Shape me, motherless. Shape the welts out of this vast form. shape the red and the ugly tigers from my willowing base. I cannot capture a smile in myself. I am a woman, under the boughs, bitter as walnut and thorn. You take you take you take. The collars of your shirts know better than my hems, swollen with me, my red thigh blues. The sorest swallows drink from this bath. The stone bath for the birds, fell on me. The stones they crossed my body. the stones they felt my weight, give. give give. Pour. The sun will not miss me. Pour me out. the roots will know me better. the roots will know me by my thirst. The roots will know me by the stiff chords of my heart.
Fiona Mickunas, 