A few city girls betray us,

blow smoke rings with Camels,

 

choke back laughter

in a corn row.

 

Those of us counting on a paycheck

pick up the slack, pull tassels

 

in rows of female white corn

for hybrid varieties.

 

The next morning at first light

we wade up to our knees

 

in icy well water

in a field that has been flooded all night.

 

Our punishment’s a sinking feeling

of numbness,

 

something we mock

by naming it quick mud.

 

There’s nowhere to step

in a quagmire.

 

Some quit; some stay on.

Some never come back.

 

We pray for dry land to appear,

for a mile-long row to end.

 

We live to never wish

field work on another.

 

Nocturne veils inked with blood cherries juice.

Half-kissed black nightshades hidden in the woods.

Playing with hand grenades crafted from monkshood.

Letting them explode right before we bloom.

 

Walking in the forest but the soil is wet,

so, our feet are sinking and covered with dirt.

Pitcher full with liquor made from wringed tears.

Next thing you’ll remember is our sacred fears.

 

Carved my biggest wishes on a tree’s pale skin.

Lick the salted promises off my best dream.

Foxes steal the grapes hanging by your lips.

Lighting up an incense for our finest sins.

 

Sneak a peek at heavens where my eyes are held.

Blue-green iris crying while brown lies ahead.

All your fruits are rotten down to their core,

is that why you want me, to repair them with my own?

 

 

sure there’s church but then there’s the Citgo on the corner of woodlawn & main

with a eucharist of packaged goods boasting life years past expiration     & beer

the flavor of the aluminum can     & the three men with red-rimmed eyes

who maintain the glass case of bongs with the sign *for tobacco use only*

mhiamour is crying in my arms & my son stares at a man with acrylic white skin

who tells my daughter    in spanish   that she is beautiful    outside

his chihuahua stands guard    her belly swollen & nipples

like the heads of a sprinkler     am i wrong to see madonna    gabriel

& the crucified three?   they are half dead already & so am i    probably

it has been a while since i’ve been to church but i still know holy ground when i see it

i push across the counter a cosmic brownie    a bag of candy corn    &   a canned margarita

one half of a 2 for $5       the man calls me love and offers me a lime

                                                               no charge.

The corner store has everything

we’ve deemed necessary,         plus

a couple of      vagueries.      Cigarettes

with a lighter, too.      An assortment

of colors and a miniature option.

Highly processed beef and sugar

water, dyed.     Glue, dyed,     to keep

things      as they are, and oil      to move

them along.         Following afoot our

fancy, their paw      on the rat's tail.

sometimes they pick their paws up,

sometimes put them down again.

 

There's no oil,       nor glue for this.

We’ve defiled the earth for more

with pine trees standing beside us,

killing themselves      from the bottom

up and curious      at the sweat,      the loud

noise.         The eels in the river thames

are coked out on our piss and going

the wrong way.      We’re running out

of others          to blame for the confusion,

We’ve drained all blood to a slow tick.

 

you bring me to the beach

only to snip the string

i watch a piece of me

shrink in ways i’ve

never seen, knowing

it will return to earth

but never to me

We damn the creeping canopy

crawl-clutching its way up walls

as though to devour what we build

given enough damp and hours.

Superstition.

                      Science says it serves

as thermal shield, combating cracks

by warming walls against the rapping

knuckles of winter, cooling them

against the curdle of summer, pulling

at pollutants and purifying air,

answering the perpetual prayer

for a chance to breathe easy.

Blessing or doom, Hedera helix

only works upon what already is:

the ivy guards good walls from salt,

immune to tears and ocean air,

but where towers already waver,

it grows into the cracks and holes,

prying.

          Pulling.

                     Exposing the marrow.

standing in the gallery of acceptable behaviors,

tourists photograph your discomfort like art—

curators still adjusting the lighting to

highlight your feminine inadequacies.

 

oh, isn't this exploitation spectacular,

a preservation of submission in formaldehyde—

people paying admission to fill their own cup,

while the gift shops sell miniature versions of

womanly service and compromise stuck in time.

 

see how they’ve mounted your dignity next to

the extinct wings of species passed, saying,

a contemporary adaptation of her—

documentaries of intentional drowning

playing tribute to the life designed for you.

 

and the gift shops still sell miniature versions

of your womanly service and compromise—

each made where survival is a national sport.

I’m sorry I don’t know you. I’m sorry I don’t know how your strange, smooth sounds

slip across my lips or how your shapes look pressed in the curves of our family moon.

Your whispers filled stomachs with remembered bread, reflected on dustless floors. Your

shadows—backdrop static against his army heroism, his winding smuggler’s paths, his

travels beyond mountains. He. Without you. Without us. Raindrops in puddles, feeling

wet streaks left across bowing leaves above. Like mustangs sense mountains, wishing

they could run together.