Four Poems from a Lesbian Diasporic Body
2022; Indiana University Press; Volume: 21; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1215/15366936-9882163
ISSN1547-8424
Autores Tópico(s)Irish and British Studies
Resumothe cheapest preschool around was downstairs in the town hall+ taught entirely in Irishalongside a flimsy grasp of my native tongue, i learnt manyvaluable skillsi learnt the skill of barteringtrading jam sandwiches for rice cakes coated in nutellai learnt the skill of self-preservationthumping a boy to tears in the bathroom after he stole myminiature packet of smartiesi had bartered away a wagon wheel for those smartiesso i wasn’t about to be left folamh láimhi learnt the skill of moldingsomebody’s mother came w/pristine marla, a cheap version ofplay-dohwe sat in a circle around her as she smoothed the strips ofmarla into heads + bodiesshe made a family, a mum, a dad + two childrenshe put this family into a boat that she had carved like a vikingfoirfe she said+ the boy started to cry again+ then i started to crythe family in the little boat didn’t look like our familiesi grew up w/many marie’splagued, they were, by the weight of such a nameone marie in particular couldn’t keep her head above the sea ofbitterness,of sorrow, of rebellionshe’d sink into rages, when we were only five, six at mostmarie’s darkness would scream a siren of warningthe teacher would evacuate us, children + children firstmarie would shred the classroom to ribbonsthe teacher stayed in there w/her, asking her again + again tocount slowly to tenwe’d peek one at time through the square of glass in the doorlined like graph paper, dividing marie + the teacher into piecessmall enough to holdthe teacher held marie’s exhausted body as we crept back inquietly righting the toppled chairs + desksone day the virgin mary’s head cracked off her shoulders +dropped to the floorwe crowded around hershe didn’t look half as pious w/out her hands clasped againsther chest in prayerher head looked ordinary lying on the lino by itselfwe’d been left alone for more than ten minuteswe filled the precious moments of freedom by pushing +shoving each otherw/all the pent-up purposelessness of youththe girl who’d slapped against the cupboard that dislodgedmary’s headfrantically called out for glueit was primary school there was no sufficient glueonly the stuff we’d lather on our hands + peel off like skinthe girl put as much as she could on the statue w/out it beingnoticeablethat afternoon we turned to mary as we did every afternoon toprayher head oozed off before we’d a chance to hailright girls, ye are old enough now to start getting involvedw/the nastier side of the bible.the days of loaves + fishes + tax collectors stuck up trees werebehind usour teacher at the time was a wizened old nun, smaller thansome of us at tenshe glorified in her task as our tour guide into sin, damnation +HELLthe girl i’d married at small break under a tree refused to lookat mei got the sense that our first kiss was to be our last as she rolledthe daisy ring from her fingermy eyes darkened at the sounds of the fiery inferno escapingthe nun’s pinched lipsi was sure to be damned if i continued to love other girls + notgodi wondered if his hands would be as small + softif he’d smell faintly like the morning’s milk spilt on a wooljumperif i’d find heart-shaped notes from him in my school bagthe small nun reprimanded me for staring into space, told me toread the next line aloud—thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fireelbows out emer, elbows outthe nun built like a tankwhispered to me as i approached the starting lineshe had overheard me call someone gay the week before+ called me up to her desk to ask me if i knew what the wordmeanti said no then yesshe said, we’ll talk about this lateri was still waiting for this later to come as i lined up for thesprinting raceshe winked at me + smiled from the side linesafter i lost the race another teacher said i could’ve won if iwasn’t so busy looking around meah, the big nun said, she’s better off w/a bit of curiosityciúineas cailíníwe press our fingers to our lipsin the pose of silence we’ve been taughtour bodies tell our minds to be quietI want to tell you about our neighbor when I was a kidhis granddaughter would come to visitmake rainbows with the hosebring her eyepatch, her parent’s problemsyears later my mother told me a story about hershe’d gone to South Africa to be with her South Africanboyfriendhe locked her in a room for hours or maybe it was daysshe managed eventually to ring her mother from under the bedsure, my mother said, what good could her mother do herfunny, my mother went onthe girl’s mother dated a fella from our terrace when we wereteenagersand the story goes that he locked her in a roomthey must be the kind of women men lock in rooms.I/ONE am buttoned upthe wrong waywearing one piece of women’s clothingI/ONE hide insidethe chaos that bleedsfrom my body without attentionI/ONE don’t have aname for myselfjust the feeling between day and nightI/ONE exist in a languagenine letters greaterthan that of my ancestorsI/ONE live in a housewhere a man has the keysto my bedroomI/ONE take my pants offin the queuein preparation for . . .Animals were arranged like a composite paintingdecomposing into the earth beneath our feetwith midges dancing on the eyes of the rotting cowsthe boy guided me from the death pit to the slurry pitbubbling to over boil like chocolate left too long to melt(years later a girl from my school would throw the body of a New Age traveler into a pit just like that)in the shed pigs were tombed alive inside a mausoleum of noisetheir mouths lolled pink frantic reverberated oinkingthe stench of their ready-to-eat flesh toxifyingmy newly acquired acquaintance propped me on the back of hishorsetrotted me down the country lane beside the grassy median stripI begged to be let downnow nowcountry wives don’t fall off the backs of horsesor faint at the sight of dead animals piled on top of more deadanimalstheir dog beached in a little room off the kitchenwhining and panting on a carpet of old towelsjelly wobbled in our bowls and onto the floor from her wombshe licked the puppies clean as they grunted on her teatsthe runt drowned in a bucket before breakfast.
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