white stone leaning on a black stone

on this day in history, what i was is already dead.
an ancient evil rises, poseidon-like,
over my head and swallows all my
wandering waves of hair. the power that i had!
when i sang, the argonauts sank their ship.

evil breaches my doorway, an idea older than chronos:
the spartan slave who makes the bed
that the athenian citizen has to lie in.

oh, all the things i could have been,
if left to bear only this child and not this pain:
i am old, i am worn, i am grey, and my skin
grows dry with every passing midnight.
(what is it to mourn your own youth?)
i am a raging, sighing daughter of the earth.
when i sang, odysseus tore his flesh for me.

and this day, this morning, when you and i come in together,
is also known as a sunday: a day in cold midwinter that
does nothing, says nothing, is nothing.
your hand on mine, what does it signify?
we cross borders every day, you and i,
and it is in these crossings that i learned to love you.
i wonder where our feet will go tomorrow.

the rocks we kick across the neighborhood sidewalk,
the pebbles we flick between imaginary goalposts,
the stones falling out of our pockets after we lounge on the beach:
underfoot and in between our toes and
rough against the grain of our skins,

i don't like the colors of the rocks
because they do not mix.

maybe after years of pressure from the earth,
maybe after eons of hot hot heat,
maybe after my inheritance is taken away
(the blood inheritance, the flesh inheritance:
my name, my body, my story)
maybe after there exists a gorgeous brown little boy
who is an anagram of father and mother,
maybe after all the civilizations fall
one by one, like repentant children with evaporating dreams—
my tired, aching song. all the change is gone.
the words are old, the methods ancient;
i could never sink a modern crew now
the way i sank the argonauts then.
for weeks i have been dousing my vocal cords in
lemon acerbity, alcoholic sting,
the persuasiveness of tasting someone else’s mouth.

the old evil rises again, enters my doorway
and sits down for tea. he sits, sycophantic, with
his knees tucked into his chest:
he is one color, one mind, one old old hate.
and this tea, on this sunday, is accompanied by my voice
pleading for reason, pleading for the power of
blood over sight: because we all run red when injured,
and today i am dressed in wounds and gore.

and this sunday, next september, every sundown,
these are my witnesses. these, and the words of my son
who is not yet born, and the blood that leaches
power out of the old evil:
when i sing, racism hums in bitter discord.
when i sing, color rakes lines across my flesh.
when i sing, all the granite and phosphate and limestone
and sandstone and obsidian of the world
rise out of the earth and run together
in one great conglomerate feast;
and my little boy kicks in my womb.

when viking kings died, their boats came along
dragged up on land, the groaning of the planks
and the sighing of the flags echoing the widows,
sisters, daughters. the men remained stoic, let
nothing show and let nothing go, watching as
the hulking ship rolled along on the backs of
a hundred dutiful slaves. the pit had been dug
weeks earlier, a maw in the earth where
ship and sailor would be embedded together.
a viking without a ship would be a hunter
tracking at midnight without the moon, a woman
without modesty, a bird without flight. but
those great men who led with tight fists and
grim grey eyes were given the majesty of
their oceanic bird removed from its tidal wings.

self-doubt
old older oldest pedantic flaw in parenting
what is self what is doubt
what is hating yourself
(but that is too extreme and i still know
that the future belongs to me)
excitement for growing older, where is it
and why have i lost it
complicated complications
money and time will always get the best of me.

i feel the pulse
here, between my hips:
here, between my ribs:
here, between my lips:
let's go grow old together.

a phone call to room service for a yogurt, a coffee, and a newspaper. the curtains blowing on top of the heater, the stifling 8th floor room becoming warmer. her shadow cast dimly on the wall that houses the xeroxed renoir, the hotel wallpaper that doesn't quite match the rest of the decor. her feet dug into the individual threads of the carpet and she contemplates opening the window and removing the screen.
she had lain on the bed, spread open and drying in the calm dank air. the tweezers in her hand slowly perused her body, sighted an unruly mark, yanked fiercely until the ugliness was gone. she felt her pores gradually closing, her self-hatred gradually closing in, till all at once she no longer could stand to be naked. the mirror on the closet door mocked her, look at those lines, those blemishes, those pockets of cellulite you disgusting malcontent, and absently she watched her breasts shake as she ripped a shirt off the hanger. a long shirt, a dark shirt, a loose shirt, and she bound herself tightly together underneath it so that the final effect was of a tent that houses nothing.
her twenty minutes in the shower that morning had been an exercise in being properly socialized, the laundry list of things that a perfect woman would do and the shallow mimicry of her own hands and underarms and face and hair. the shampoo bottle had fallen off the tile shelf and against her kneecap, had left a faintly mauve indentation that would be covered by loose pants anyways. the razor had taken several copious trips around her silhouette, a continuously unsatisfying baring of her skin.
and before that sun had risen, his weight had left her bed, a flickering cigarette lit up the darkness and its rancid molasses smoke drifted through her half-awake psyche. the zipper zips up, the buttons button down, and his exit, as usual, was marked with no words or motions or affection. the dream he'd interrupted had been heavy, horrific, with visions of gore and the visceral enjoyment of wolves responsible for the dismemberment of small children. the wind from his slamming of the door reminded her of the howls of babies who lack mouths.
she had tried to please him, had had a roast and vegetables and bread from the best bakery and wine from the best winery, and two candles and the wedding china, had laid it all out symmetrically. by the time he came home the roast was cold, the candles burned halfway through, the bread gone slightly stale. his mouth was full of cold, burned staleness, and his eyes burned insecurity through her womb. the news of his hard-won government contract, lucrative for the company and for him, was wound into a single barked phrase, and accompanied by the need for time spent apart. there was a hotel on the upper east side he would afford for her, and she should take the time to think about how gracious he was to her, and how she could possibly survive without his taking the time to care for her, the voice in the back of her head that never let up until silenced with prescription depressants.
the week had never looked promising, and monday morning had been devoted to valium and scrubbing every inch of the tile in the bathroom. her worst fear was that his body, removed of all textile protection, should brush against some bacteria or mold or fungus and be tainted permanently. this could never be forgiven. the phone never rang and her doorbell was never answered, in case he had finally taken action against her inadequacy and was trying to serve her with papers. the final two hours before his homecoming were spent in painstaking beautification, she put the time in but the image never came out.
their first anniversary, that was when it had all started falling apart. the dinner out which was really only a reservation that he had forgotten to make, the expensive necklace that his secretary had purchased and gift wrapped, the phone call to say he was caught in traffic when she clearly heard a singing sopranic sotto voce behind him. she was inclined to forgive him, it was innate to her and expected in him, and she did, but the sex that night had made her remember all the years before him of silent days and injurious nights.
years ago, he had made sex beautiful again. the perfect adherence to gender, race and class rules, the perfect words coming out of his perfect mouth that said i love you, you're mine, you're mine and you need me, and when he said that-- you need me-- she would invariably reach her climax. eventually the associations were too strong to break: her need for him with spreading warmth, his domination of her with delicate tremors. the absolute successful white masculinity had no space in it for anyone who couldn't compete, who couldn't compare. he demanded similarity from her, and she produced: a perfect hourglass figure, dinner promptly at six with chilled wine and warmed plates, he even inspired in her an obediant libido to match his own.
before him there had only been failure and vague guilt. what other girl in her quiet, well-bred upper middle class neighborhood needed an abortion at age 13? the stigma ruined her as much as the scars ruined the appearance of her uterus. nothing looked healthy any more, not her face or her body or her ego or her school grades. she lacked promise, and no one felt the need to encourage someone who had messed up so badly so young. blame the parents, the teachers said; blame the youth, the parents said; blame the boyfriend, the youth said; blame your stupid whoring self, said the boyfriend. and so she did.
at age five she had wanted to be a princess. the year before, a ballerina. her hardworking mother recognized both as at least socially acceptable, and provided dreamy costumes, yards of tulle and pretty shoes, disney movies and heterosexual normatives aplenty. she would play dress up for hours, stand in front of mirrors admiring herself, accepting her own praises and suggestions about how a princess might walk or a ballerina might wear her hair. one night she had absentmindedly left her princess veil in the living room; when her mother's boyfriend came over and saw it, he felt too confronted with the presence of a child in the house and was unable to provide the regular raucous, semi-abusive sexual experience that he usually gave her mother. sent without dinner to her room with her mother's hopes of a sexless middle age, she couldn't understand what had happened.
her father had left her mother before she could talk sensibly. there was only one memory of him that persisted: her chubby legs hanging out of the high chair, her mother in the kitchen waiting on the microwave, and the man swaggering into the kitchen and taking a brown glass bottle out of the fridge. noticing the child, he smiled becomingly and tried to convince her that the bottle was delicious; the mother, noticing, scolded the man and he turned suddenly, broke the bottle in half on the edge of the countertop, and slashed at the mother's face. the child, startled beyond surprise and scared beyond fear, watched as the fizzing beer dripped down the counter onto the floor and the astonishingly bright blood fell from her mother's cheek and mouth.