(no subject)

[lonely-hour.livejournal.com]

Spectacle: Possession 

 

1

A woman wears a blue dress. It is
Sunday. Red cardinals sing
along the sill. She cuts
her neck with an electric
carving knife. A woman is blue.
She is red. She wears 
the Sunday blues. Carves 
cardinals into an electric
red dress. Her neck

sings electric. Sunday wears on.

A knife sings before it cuts.

On the sill, Sunday carves

the necks of cardinals. Knives

wear red. Sunday dresses

along the sill. Sing

said the cardinal.

Sing said the knife.

A woman is electric.

Her neck is a sill.

Cardinal sing the Sunday

reds in her electric neck.

A woman is a carving.

A woman is a knife.

A woman.

 

2

 

A woman rises to a knock at her door,

a stone strikes her head as her ex-

husband plunges in, clutching
a rock and a carving

knife. He can't cope

with a prefix meaning no longer

or lacking so he whittles it

from her forehead, criss-

crossing her face with a blade

made for slicing steak.

 

Their thirteen-year-old daughter witnesses,

from a corner, strapped to her

shadow in shock, her mouth

open, spilling the word stop

that circles the room in a boomerang

returning to splinter her throat, her father's
ears. The man looks up from his white

shirt, Rolex, ox-blood Gucci shoes

splashed with his ex-wife and says

I'm sorry to his daughter as the woman's 
breath jags from collapsed lungs.

 

3

 

I am always burying something:

cardinals with shattered wings,

orange peels, smell of your dress

as it dries on the windowsill.

 

You come to me bearing 

poppies, birds and glass,

a carving knife.

Your body a hieroglyph.

 

You want me to whittle you

down into an amulet;

a tooth necklace to

wear as a token.
 

In the kitchen's carnivorous light,

you and I are too much alike;

the skull's opalescent curve,

milkweed smelling skeleton,

 

bones tattered as lace.

Like lightning. Electric.

When i move you carve yourself out of me

 

humming the mean reds

and the Sunday blues.

Sing say the birds.

Sing say the bones. 

 

~Simone Muench (♥)