text by Claressinka Anderson
 

I

Hanging a cross around my neck,
I press my naked body against the X 
of a window frame, place between my legs 
the harvested corn from your garden,
remember the women before me,
this kitchen, their feet 
stoic on unstable ground.

Their eyes sliced open—

 an eye for an eye 

 for an egg­­.

II

Chain and hook my body,
tether it to the walls,
to the bed where I sleep & 

dream of tiny hands,
of a body that doesn’t know birth,
a mouth that eats pearls for breakfast—
tiny iridescent moons 
that deliver calcium for a skeleton.

I lick the surface of a shell,
place my tongue at the edge of its
salt      smooth      pink

And in that shell I do not hear the sea,
but the quiet desert, full of sand and stars. 

III

Tonight for dinner there is corn,
kernels of metallic memories,
they float into a wonder of sky 
where light itself is a wormhole 
gobbling confessions— 

secrets in an attic full of mercy,
concealed by a pull down staircase. 
I place my foot on its tender rungs,
scale each ligament one by one,
all the way up
to drink with the moon—

I am, I whisper,

I am

I am

I am.