 |
| Rachael Ikins |
JUST BECAUSE WE
BLEED
Margaret Atwood as
prophet. The Handmaid’s Tale there it is,
January 6, her
words’ smooth iron eyes, “slaughter of Congress.
Suspension of the Constitution” and “we
thought it wouldn’t last.”
Yes, well, Roe vs.
Wade did not outlive 2022. The Handmaid’s legs open—
her heart an
echoing cave—to be inseminated “seeded” by loins of the pious
and hypocritical. I don’t hang in the air like
a pendulum, I fall fast and sharp:
insert an
artificially created, by some humane method, a well-developed,
close-to-term
fetus, say 6-7 pounder, via slice through perineum and anus into
the congressman in charge of the house. Stitch
the episiotomy tight as a virgin’s purse on his screams.
Like Nazis did to
the Virgin Miriam in their camps, legs tied together on tightening
contractions, a
demonic way to torture a woman to death, to squash an infant’s head
flat. Old rain
drains under the porch. Peaches fall, abscission, ground-flattened
(neonate skulls) smear bark. If he had to
endure this, perhaps. Oh my God.
Just because we
bleed.
HIEROGLYPHICS
So
many lived in my house before me, did someone start something halfway up the
stairs? again on the landing? Did
they stagger rug-rashed, barely connected into a bedroom which bedroom to
collapse like a hollowed balloon across a bed, the story they thrashed out
unspooling?
Sleep
stole them, moon laid silver fingers on dreaming salt.
Robin
voices pricked them awake.
Did
they shower together lather-and-sluice and one-more-slippery-time sucking
spray?
Body
parts across sheets, fragrance of living things, vampire kisses, choosing upper
inner thigh, bruise coaxed with tooth, lip, ownership lavished, an artist’s
tongue;
Coded
messages.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When
we began, we wore each other, traded skins. Yours
cracked-red, silk starved for friction. Mine a knife-sheath
as blade slid home tears laked my eyes. We hovered paralyzed as lizards, stuck
dogs nipping air while we waited for thrust.
Oh,
I
could barely walk, loose jeans, no underwear. Skin rubbery enough to extrude a
small human greedy for so much craving.
Numeric/opposite,
we glued. Face-to-faced. Caught each other from behind. Spelunkers.
This
bee-stung moon three years long, car almost ran off the road we couldn’t stop
touching when I picked you up from the airport.
In
hammocks July dusk outside a neighbor’s window. Whispering smiles into each
other’s necks as workmen hammered downstairs.
One
day you have to reduce the heat so you can tolerate water’s touch. So we
simmered three decades,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
this
last ritual shared,
the
last words,
our
final prayer,
your
name carved beneath my armpit, throbs every heartbeat,
all
the hieroglyphics
nobody
sees
grief
endures, love lives and
I
wonder as I climb
did
anyone who lived here fuck
halfway
up
the
stairs.
NEWS
FLASH WITH LIGHTENING
The
water stood up,
climbed
over the wall, skirt hiked above lumps of knees, it roared. Head thrown back,
neck tendons standing out, two guardians kicked the wall into pieces.
Bodies
long submerged say goodbye to seaweeds which unsnarl green fingers to release
these bloated boats. Bones’ white saws through where
the
water stands up climbs the wall, clatter lumps of knees and chatter anklebones.
Where
is it going to go?
They
gesticulate at each other while the roof of a house floats by, slow rotating
majesty blew its top.
When
the water stood up, hiked that skirt it roared bits of poetry, broken china and
the garble of sifting stones hand to
hand,
halfway across the planet, smoke. Fire stands up, throws itself into the flames
naked and squeals, sparks
fly from each boot-step. Particles of ash blanket cities, skylines erased,
flocks vanish into its cotton.
Fire
opens its mouth, giggles
Scampering
along highways through dried stands of pine.
We
used to feel lucky —those people out west with wildfire and mudslides— our
green bower was safe we believed
until the winter the snow stopped. Surely the rains will
come, we thought, at the boundary when winter melts into spring.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You
lug buckets of water from the pool,
rain
barrel 80 gallons dry twice now,
tease
tender seedlings
tomato
eggplant artichoke
just
one woman with a perfect heart.
You
are not a thunderstorm.
You
are not days/weeks of slow, soaking rain.
You
run back-and-forth between two houses,
two
families of cats, two gardens of struggle.
An
osprey lights on a power pole at the entrance
to
the taco joint. You wonder what he wants so far
from
the river,
no
fish tacos here.
The
water stands up.
Fire
stands up.
Smoke
absorbs birds into its thousand fists,
wings
of ash, shattered feather, voice drones on
and
that raptor peers down an endless crack
of
mummified earth.
Garden
once a refuge, today a need
impossible
to meet.
Smoke
smells like peonies, and
peony
petals cook brown,
even
as the flower still holds herself open
for
pollinators,
her
hopeless drive
to
protect the seeds.
Rachael
Ikins
is a 2016/18/2022 Pushcart, 2013/18 CNY Book Award, 2018 Independent Book Award
winner, 2019 Vinnie Ream; Faulkner poetry finalist & 2021 Best of the
Net nominee. She is a Syracuse University graduate with a degree in Child and
Family Studies. She worked as a vet tech and later as a sign language
interpreter/teaching assistant with ages K-12. Author/illustrator of nine books
in multiple genres. Her writing and artwork have appeared in journals worldwide
from India, UK, Japan, Canada, and US. She was invited to feature Pride 2023 at
Rare Voices, Rochester NY and at Sea of Coffee, Geneva NY. Born in the
Fingerlakes she lives by a river with her dogs, cats, saltwater fish, a garden
that feeds her through winter and riotous houseplants with a room of their own.
Frogs found their way to her fountain. Dragons fly by.
