Hunger

For Maria, a survivor of the FDLR Militia, Burnia, 2003.

 

embeds itself in the canvas of Lendu pockets. They emerge

from tree-covered hills as ghosts unsatisfied with the last fistful of flesh.  

The blood fades too easily, their mouths yearn for women too tender

for tongues used to leather hide. 

 

Besides, the cattle have long since gone, the wells now stonewalled deserts,

the crops heaps of ash beneath the bones of the village.

Fitting that our bodies have become welcome feasts.

 

When the last rebel tucked his still slick riffle back into his trousers,

I thought they’d kill me with their metal bullets, or reserve my

leftovers if their unborn sons craved seconds in the middle of the night.

 

A tall thin man with my dried blood and milk stained across his abdomen

approaches me, slowly.  His shadowed eyes catch the blades glean

as it sings sharply, severs me from myself at the elbow.

 

The men did not bother to season the meat, roast it over the fire,

or slice it in palm sized favors; simply passed my still seizing

limb around as a hostage pheasant.  This is how the men break bread:

their teeth digging into forearm, wrist                                 tendon.

 

My left arm now a wired fence gathers my children into my chest,

swollen like ripe figs. I press my nipple to my daughter’s quaking mouth,

watch my son’s gashed scalp empty his dreams like juicy pulp.  Nudge

my right breast, eat.  He shudders and grips his stomach, a bowl of rising flies.

 

 

Scheherazade

 

Myth created a lie of my name, for fear men

would realize their weakness. Shahryar knew

my valley well, inebriated on its blooming dew;

even jasmine birthed its scent from my silk linens,

tried desperately to mock the depth of its flushed Tyrian

shade. They say I taught him morality? What better view

of God than this. Sitars ringing from my purr, his mouth imbued

with the color of my fever. No wonder the west translates Persian

 

poorly, where holy becomes sin and worship means longing.

I made him king. Kept his face pressed to the thigh soaked night,

left a constellation hanging from his chin, gave his mouth wings.

I knew the truth would dry to dust, our empire a landscape of ruin,

my power destroyed by men who never swallowed the light,

never drowned in a woman just to hear how sweet death sings.

 

 

The Woman Who Refuses to Die Alone Confesses

I know how this looks: the bedroom’s a crime scene and there’s guillotine at the bottom
of my purse.  No those limbs don’t belong to the same body, but the closet’s full and I
didn’t  want to stain my yellow pumps.          His hands? Yeah, the skin’s charred up. 
When he kissed me and wouldn’t stop, I tried to explain my hearts a tin drum of
kerosene.          He told me he didn’t care, said he wanted to put me in a house made of magnesium oxide, painted pink with a picket fence of spun sugar.  When the flames burst
from my lips, his body flaked up like a pie crust.       I mean could you imagine, me
dragging him down the stairs bits of poor son-of-a-bitch stuck to the carpet? 
The neighbors would have known when they got their morning mail: the curled fibers
frayed to the wood panel          a locket of us lodged beneath the front door.