border girls

 

 

I.

foreplay in the desert

 

(purpling with her molasses)

 

the murdered body swells. she devours herself

 

from the inside out, pink snake feeding

 

on its own tale.

 

 

all war is waged to kill a story.

 

 

the fingernails remember.

 

the remembering: black. border girl.

 

scavengers leave gnawed leg. a shoulder missing. 

 

 

exposed the bones. screech of teeth. growl & grovel.

 

maria vanished. after scratching ‘round scabbed

 

mountain sides, cops find wrists tied with shoelaces,

 

dark flare of hair.

 

 

brown border girl, strange girl, silenced in sand,

 

shrubs & trash. i hear him whistling

 

sharp on the bottle. taunting red

 

gaze, the crazed slits. the howling show

 

for the streetcorner shackling.

 

 

i am in love with blood i have never seen.

 

 

her body bloats in white sand.

 

 

 

II.

 

stage directions for the sister eye.

 

she crawls the white carpet in a white slip. sing the holes in this.

 

the fingernails painted black

the talking back. blank canvas screeches.

 

blank book moans. opening. closing. opening. legs.

 

white leather sofa. where he sucks on the cream

 

of the screaming.

 

pale suitcase packed & where was she heading?

 

 

 

III.

 

she slides on amnesiac knees

 

arranging the martini glasses in a circle of thirteen.

 

positioning place cards by each drink, waiting

 

for the guests to groan their arrival. for her lost ones

 

this brimming

 

& the olive on the side, begging to bribe

 

the ghosts to bring back her memories. “whose life

 

am i circling? what forbidden photograph?

 

 

i cannot gargoyle this one, posture cruel & frighten

 

them into fleeing. bring them back,” she chants. “bring them

 

unto me: east, west, north, south. bring back the sweat

 

sip & hive of breath, harmonica on the blues

 

& the red salt that sickens & all the quivering fingers

 

parting curtains of stone.

 

 

 

IV.

 

bring back the velvet cave contraband & wash of bells.

 

she circles on knees. thin girl knees.

 

begging the bribe of martini overflowing & the pregnant

 

olive on the side. circling the rim. the rim (of him)

 

 

 

V.

on the other side: concrete. in a glass box the eye

 

singing opera. chains bolted to the wall. iron candelabras.

 

wicks won’t quit the burning. she has been here before. she is already

 

forgetting. what could the eye sing & see without him?

 

“grotesque thing a  woman. grotesque thing.”

 

 

 

 

 VI.

 

white curtain hides the entrance.

 

she cannot bear to remember this, this rusted

 

rule of the brother room, other room. crawling white carpet

 

the glasses are arranged. she waits. bride for groom. no.

 

what is the looting? white is white is white & the brightness

 

unbearable. spill. stain. “i am drunk on the absence. still me.”

nailed to her back a photograph of a dark-haired man she cannot name.

 

 

cocaine mirror. white coil. vase of lilies. the shock

 

& shout of this silence & the ghosts are holding out.

 

“the remembering body is a felony

 

& my breath, the sacred crime.

 

i know this, but i don’t know why.”

 

felon body. criminal, the breast & the breath.

 

all war is waged to kill a story.

 

 

“i believe i must whisper this & i don’t know why. i would prefer eating

 

the archive to this whiteness: brutal & blind.”

 

“who am i? what would i sigh & sing?

 

i take snapshots of blank canvas

 

& faces appear, sneering at a tilt. carnival black teeth.”

  

 

 

VII.

 

                                    braid the hair. cut the braid. suck the thumb.

 

“i have a closet of costumes

 

& i don’t know why. who dresses up the dummy body?” brass cigarette holder.

 

“do i smoke?” cocaine mirror. “chandelier swings in my belly.” a girl child

 

climbs the stairs of a private jet. a snapping typewriter in the skull. a scowling

 

scrapbook. “but the memory-eaters came & teethed on me, daddy.” her eyes change

 

color. green to brown to grey bonfire.

 

to blue gunshot.

 

 

 

VIII.

 

beneath a blindfold. a box that sings. glass eye hidden inside.

 

eye in the vice grip. can’t stop the witness. he looks away. it wrenches.

 

 

i am already forgetting. forgetting for him. he asks this of me.

 

“steal the memory of those you want to oppress.”

 

the eye sang opera & i was not afraid.

 

 

that language has not been invented yet.

 

yes, it has.

 

basement brown sugar. tar damp. i taste her.

 

pink snake eating her own tail.

 

 

 

i am already forgetting the recipe for martinis.

 

i am remembering one bloody white shoe in juarez.

 

“he stained me.”

 

we are border girls.

want a drink?

 

 

 

IX.

 

body is a book i cannot bear to read.

 

cloistering the evidence. bare & read: drug run in the flesh.

 

i do not shiver at the exodus. i have seen the assassin’s eye & i was not afraid.

 

one bloody shoe in the desert.

 

the bloating belly. the clipped newspaper curling yellow. now this: austin, texas. husband

 

smashes in the skull of his wife with a sledge hammer. he said she gurgled blood. said she

 

wanted a life of her own. said she was trying to take away the daughter.

 

 

silence shudders.

 

who is slaughtering the story?

 

 

be careful with a woman like me

 

be careful with a woman like me

who lives like a drunkard

for the grey honey of the sea

who sends her singing voice to distant coves

like a hurricane trapped in a bottle just to see

if shrouds can be ripped & the dead raised.

 

be careful with a woman like me

who sharpens her heart like an ivory dagger

& howls her monsoon music to the moon

who wraps her secrets in silver cloths

to hide beneath deck & makes no promises

who is a cloud no hammer can nail to the bed

who will keep you restless & well fed on blackberries.

 

be careful with a woman like me

who dances in with a brass band

then slips away like a line in the sand

when the slightest wind moves.

it is not that i can’t be true.

it is not that you are a red lacquered door

to open & quickly pass through.

 

but what appears to be

a delicate locket hanging

from a gold chain at my neck

holds a private tempest & the shipwreck

of every storm-torn night my skin eats.

 

be careful of a woman like me.

i am true the way rain is true.

i am pure & vanishing.

when the thirst of brittle leaves is quenched

when the land is a screaming emerald

it is clear. i am no longer here.

 

i am  as restless as a sloop at bay,

swaying with the seducing wave & her dark granite gaze.

 

i secretly flunked the school of manners

though i held my spoon at such a graceful angle.

i disguised my dissent behind the careful lifting

of the teacup & memorized the map of their make believe.

 

i breathed heavy in the bed of my enemy

so i could overturn the twist of the sordid fist.

i oiled the gears of my mind like a pleasing machine.

you should be careful with a woman like me.

 

all the while i trained in guerilla warfare
chewed rabbit stew, sank my teeth

into the neck of a god who does not topple

at the earthquake of the shrine.

 

i crossed seven purple mountains on my knees.

i sucked on stones until they turned to bread.

i gave my heart to a hungry harlot to eat for breakfast

 

& you will find only the grey honey of the sea

rocking, rocking

in a woman like me.