Zarina Zabrisky

CARVED

 carved
 from an unborn rib
 before dawn
 hours all wrong
 

 i waited
 for the sun

 my mouth
 stuffed with
 the cotton wool
 of sunless dread
 
 my own ribcage--
 a human cage
 for my body
 
 my own ribs--
 the teeth
 gnawing on
 the yearning hole
 
 but for the others--
 i turned into a toy:
 
 button holes
 for eyes,
 black scratches
 for tears,
 lips sewn
 in a coy
 smile.
 
 a velvet
 pussy cat
 voiceless
 clawless
 soulless
 
 at midday
 i tore
 through the fake furs,
 i turned
 into a scary bird
 
 i flew out
 through the window
 glass shards
 for feathers
 
 wings growing
 through my ribs
 at all angles
 barbed wire
 of the freedom
 and terror
 
 and i screamed
 at the empty corners
 
 not from pain
 
 i screamed for you--
 
 a street walker
 a rope walker--  
 said the passer bys
 
 i ripped
 a jagged wound
 for my mouth
 blood lipstick
 all pretty
 
 not a song
 parted my lips
 not a moan
 
 it was a prayer
 to be heard
 
 but
 
 not for pain
 i screamed at the corners,
 oh deaf strangers
 
 when it hurts
 i am silent
 
 a steel blade of the broken knife
 with ice of indifference  
 cuts from my throat to my cunt
 fits tight
 fills the void of the lost rib
 at the core
 
 pain is me
 
 at the corners
 i screamed
 my soul desire
 
 last night
 i felt
 the translucent skin
 of our cells
 merging
 fusing together
 an amalgalm
 of you and me
 spiraling up
 sparkling like
 the whiteness of the bone
 in the hotness of the joint
 the watermelon broken in snow
 shards of milky glass
 splinters of DNA
 diamonds hidden in the depth
 of the sugary watermelon
 chunks of sacred meat
 vein juices bleeding
 from torn sweet flesh
 split
 as i was born back into you