She daily effuses
the close-mouthed
tantrum of her fevers.
Hog-tied and lunatic.
Born toothsome,
unholy. Born uppity.
Blue-jawed and out-order.
Watched her sculptor
split her bitter seam
with his scalding knife;
mauled through the errant
flesh of her nature
and hemorrhaged mercury,
molted snakeroot, a smoke
of weeping silver.
She, accused.
Sprung from the head
of a thousand-fisted
wretch or a blood-dark
cosmos undoubling
her bound body.
Vexed shrew. Blight of moon.
She, armory. Pitched-milk pours
from her gold oracular.
Bred in her nest a lone
grenade, prized, unpried
its force-ripe wound.
She, disease. Often bruised
to brush the joy of anything.
Zombic. Un-groomed.
Her night slinks open
its sliding pin. One by one
these loose hopes
harpoon themselves
in, small-ghosts alighting
at her unwhoring.
She, infirmary.
God’s swallowed
lantern, tar-hair and thick.
Her black torchstruck.
A kindling stick.
No sinkle-bible fix
to cure this burning.
Shrill hell. Jezebel.
Isn’t it lonely.
Copyright © 2016 by Safiya Sinclair. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 15, 2016, by the Academy of American Poets.