Elegy in Chiaroscuro
Mother braids in her edges something dark.
Something lost & feral. Grief: a ghastly beast
with no tongue. To ward off locusts: she plucks
blood from vein & into soil: candlelight flowing
& the world spilling out, ashen & anemic. As the
nights of mourning close in on her, Mother gets
drunker & she cries: rough voice muffled &
shaking, tears hot & wet on my skin. She tries
to find my heartbeat & her last abortion’s a
frenzied scream—roiling with desire, a cancer's
lambent dance. It’s as though the keyhole has
finally cracked open: a riotous burst of energy the
demon’s been waiting for. Leave Eve-bitten apples
as offerings, turning jaundice as her blood-soaked
crucifix—all the lush shades of red dancing across her
back: like coral, too; not all color is supposed to be
flower-like. I haven’t mastered the process of
transmutation yet, the organ of giving the image a
personality. I put too much faith in being beautiful.
The bonework palls: the body seethes: the teeth itch:
I have a fever. She looks too full. Her face is stark &
numb, pale & washed: she has eaten the world & all
its mad tangled shadows. She doesn’t see me.
Mother’s eyes are long & heavy. The whole of creation
is wrapped inside it, squeezing & latching & pinching.
We leave with the promise that they’re healing. That
her bloodletting will draw life. We remained silent,
lest we break the spell & ruin the memory.
Let us not forget, Mother, of the dream where we
buried the last of our savings in this ichor wishing well.
How we prayed to alter this ending in your fantasy we
once wielded but have long offered to this God we
keep waiting for: holy but not divine.
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