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Listening (To)
for Ravi Shankar
because I am a woman
trained to crunch my abs until
all those ugly jiggly parts
tear off my side( pour out my mouth
in porcelain privacy )
raised to scrape my skin with blades
& expensive
lotion
in case someone wants to touch
to floralize my skin—lavender, rose absolute
if anyone comes close enough to scent me
told I should already
know
that shams stay on pillows only by day
keeping dust away from layers
will accommodate stubble by night
drilled in cleaning, cooking fractions
no grades but table praise
because of more than this
when a man
(who happens this time to be you,
forgive me
)
claims he can hear the Sound Puget Sound
I leapt & swam through shivering summers
gray reflecting marble sky
from a market it wouldn't be (mere) cliché
to say I traipsed a thousand times
I go to those bricks at seven
(earliest bus will arrive
forgive me—I don't drive)
stand&step&stand&step
listening
convincing
myself I hear tide hissing
along sand, along itself
only to find it's a car
thinking
wake & storm waves throw
metal & drift
wood into piers
only to find a seller unloading
has dropped a crate of animals
molded from St. Helens ash
unable
even to pretend
coins in Starbucks siren cup
held by a woman whose face is covered
with a green fleece blanket
are waves crashing into each other
I begin to make excuses for that man
(who
happens to be you)
Sounds meant foghorns
(you didn't say)
or gulls
(who fly & cry across Lake Washington anyway
I even begin to ask the farmers
white & Hmong, ask everyone in town (if I weren't so
shy
but ask my coworkers at least
& when I find that I am right believe
nobody will read this
for you (a man)
have dismissed everything I write
as holding nothing
You can remember (man)
Chapel Hill
every thing you baked me fell
apart before dust could frost
callus burned over honeycomb soft
turning brittle
until the center can't hold
I tried to save everything
against blood-dimmed tide
& you with your belief in revelation
hated it
we didn't sleep together
until Tokyo
& knew the gyre widened
we wouldn't touch again
& our only choice is always crumbs
or cobwebs
The decision was in everything you added
I thought so sweet
surviving the oven
where I had yet to be born |
Under His Tree
Merry Christmas—saffron sweater
woven inner flame
like your skin would be
if you kept drinking
as much as night of my black eye
but you've cleaned up
more than I can get
these sties & needles out
of bruises I can only speak
(don't speak so much)
(don't bleed outside
of biohazard bin)
(now in every airport toilet)
(where your girlfriend changes
your daughter & appeases
your nose I knew as red)
I have to wear this sweater
to show what I forget
to show that I love him
Under Weather
if a mobile destructive vortex could wear shoes
leather would print my face
until my bones turned powder
and everyone would praise
(God)
a victimless tornado
chewed up anyway I let myself
become used gum & stick
desperate
for that irritated lift into sight
resist
only
removal
and if I can arrange my cell
s spell
follow me
judge him
in dust
whoever he may be
Haima
Blood that didn't spit bullets & daisy
cutters out pores can trickle out eyes
when lost arms burn & costly
towers tear them down
Don't call my blood lukewarm
with its blue green layers
cold currents under heat
would eat away my bones
but that my muscles stop
on strict flashing orders from the mind
this lead would come off my ankles
come off memory that it binds
in lead-painted room
that never made TV
& shove it personally
through male bones
random on the street
a rising flesh
smell burnt
from which you all are saved
haunts imagination
of blood that will not steam |
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Elizabeth Kate Switaj (