LITMIR.BIZ

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like most other bodies;

      its speech packs around it like wasp

      paper. Speaking a thin, permanent

      archive. What we call a woman.

Carrier (standing woman carrying wolf)

       after Kiki Smith

      She was preaching no sermon except

      the one that goes love thyself, sinner, and love

      them animals, the ones running past you

      in the night when you can hardly breathe

      their fur gets so close and all you want to do

      is pass out so you don’t remember how good

      they smell and if you want to be one.

Standing

       after Kiki Smith

      From up here I can see it all.

      Collision of the cellular level and the structures.

      I raised this body myself.

      I have been pouring water from my hands.

      Listen, the body

      is more like stars than we know; I’ve seen them

      rising from my sternum, a private 3-D

      panoramic constellation.

      With my long spine I look down over everything.

      With my bare head and my secondary stars.

Rapture

       after Kiki Smith

      One of us had to do it,

      no question.

      To go and live inside the wolf

      and walk out one day, rip

      its soft abdomen

      open and leave

      the carcass there like a casting.

      Truth is,

      we fought this—

      we wore one another under

      our nails for weeks.

      We know what it’s like

      to stay where things are mostly

      made of blood.

      We know the soft

      wet feeling walking in.

      We know

      where to slice to get away.

Untitled (camera)

       after Kiki Smith

      No one thought

      to equip us for being

      here. So we’ve been busy

      making us things.

      The camera’s

      a third eye

      made of leather,

      wood, oil paint,

      one nail.

      What’s not to love about this

      kind of looking?

      Our homemade camera

      sees with the densest eye

      even

      when we don’t open its case.

Girl with chain

       after Kiki Smith

      Girl with part in her hair.

      Girl with downward glance.

      Girl with tiny Adam’s apple.

      Girl with shoulders gently.

      Girl with generalized flower pattern.

      Girl with stomacher.

      Girl with late 18^th century.

      Girl with exposed.

      Girl with blue ground.

      Girl with fog.

      Girl with platemark.

      Girl with fourteen doubles.

      Girl with Hahnemühle.

      Girl with mottling.

      Girl with linen, lines.

It falls into ruin by its own weight

       after Kiki Smith

      Let’s punish all those women.

      Let’s punish them hard.

      Let’s make it so their babies

      fall out of them

      like red splotches

      and their bodies are open

      to whatever invasion we choose.

      Let’s show those women

      they can’t be trusted

      with the frangible innards

      we’ve taken so much time

      to cultivate.

      Let’s haul out of them bodies

      what we came for,

      new stock, new

      civilization.

Scaffold body

       after Kiki Smith

      We were used to living

      attached to the ground.

      So it was a surprise

      to see others living

      in suspension.

      Bodies soft

      as sunflower heads after

      winter, hanging

      from the scaffold.

      We climbed on up.

      The thought of bodies

      even small ones

      or ones we don’t know

      living like that

      alone

      was too much. Lying

      on the scaffold’s bars

      our breath went in and out.

      Our lungs moved

      everything gently.

      Swing, little soft

      bodies,

      swing.

Daughters

       after Kiki Smith

      You know what I learned in the dark?

      First

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