blud - Rachel McKibbens

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      the delirium chorus

      of a rowing mind.

      She was always going.

      I haven’t seen her

      in two decades

      & I have felt

      every year.

      What’s the word

      for a shadow’s

      shadow? Apparition,

      dark twin, heartless

      daughter?

      Sometimes she calls

      on your birthday,

      my father says.

      Confused.

      Her mouth full of radio wire.

      God is a signal, the devil a song.

      *

      Hey Ma, how many voices

      does it take for a schizophrenic

      to change a lightbulb?

      Wait. I’m sorry.

      Let me ask

      an easier question:

      When you left,

      did you leave

      your children

      half-full

      or half-empty?

      three strikes

      After Uncle Phil got

      eight years

      for coke possession

      I inherited his bedroom,

      a modest kingdom

      magnificent in its starkness:

      ball chain hanging

      from exposed lightbulb,

      narrow mattress

      & weight-lifting bench,

      its iron rings laced in dust.

      Nights my struck face

      throbbed, when

      my body swelled blue

      from every pore,

      I’d lie in bed

      & pray to vanish

      closed my eyes

      so tight I saw stars.

      I wanted to become

      the reversal of light,

      to exist

      only within the

      hard-clenched black—

      kindergarten pariah

      with a sweet tooth for death.

      There, at the end

      of a smoke-stained

      hallway, I discovered

      the women,

      bodies shelved

      above the unworn

      coats & flannel

      button-ups.

      Kitty. Crystal.

      Heather. Ashley.

      Vicky. Candy. Kim.

      Feathered hair

      & lip gloss,

      pussies held open

      by French manicures

      they instructed me on

      the body’s forbidden dialect,

      the gospel of ecstasy,

      how heat can ravage

      from the inside out.

      I’d practice in the closet.

      Masturbated in the bathroom stall

      at recess. Deep

      in my sleeping bag

      during slumber parties.

      The Sunday school

      cloakroom. Dentist’s

      office. The backseat.

      My middle finger,

      a shriveled magician.

      How else could I survive

      the endless winter

      of my childhood?

      Hell-spangled girl

      spitting teeth into the sink,

      I’d trace the broken

      landscape of my body

      & find God

      within myself.

      the sandbox

       for Lisa or Laurie

      We held each other / in silence / mouth against mouth / blood & thunder scorching the grass / Behind the shed / I played the husband / brutish breadwinner / choking her flesh / in my troubled hands / pulling her head back / to lick / from neck to ear / in frenzied thrill / The kind of love / I learned from movies / & what light swamped the air / as I shoved my bald pelvis into hers / blood ripening into wolf brine / burning a girl-shaped hole in the clover? / Every afternoon I became a god reinventing sky / expert forger of the dry hump / I asked Who’s your daddy? before that was even a thing / Once the recess bell rang / I released her back / into the quiet unwild / to no-longer-mine / to fat white tubs of minty paste / & songs about Jesus / From across the room / I watched my bride / make eyes / with the real boys / & knew I could kill for her / drill a body down into the earth / boy in the Polaroid / a grisly figurine / The white horse of masculinity bucking wild on the inside / I bit my lip & did as I was told / After school / I wanted / to hold her hand / she always wanted a divorce / When the big kids followed me home / calling me / lesbo / homo / wetback / faggot / I held my chin out & challenged to fight them all / every time / & why not? / Might as well / we all knew / I would never / win / anything.

      leverage

      Before the burglar

      raped my grandmother

      he pushed her down

      a flight of stairs.

      Ankle turned, hip unhitched.

      There was no getting up, no

      hope for flight. She told me that while he

      was on top of her, she stared up

      at the clock from the kitchen floor.

      Watched each minute crawl by

      like a half-smashed bug,

      imagining the school bus

      emptying her sons into the yard.

      Thought of the sandwiches

      she had no time to make.

      As the man pulled his pants up,

      she noticed the tattoo on his

      forearm. MOTHER framed

      by a heart. My sons will be home

      soon,

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