Ceremonial

                         Delirious,
touch-starved,
             I pinch a mole
                          on my skin, pull it
off, like a bead—
             I pinch & pull until
                          I am holding
a black rosary. Prayer
             will not cool
                          my fever.
Prayer will not
             melt my belly fat,
                         will not thin
my thighs.

                         A copper-
faced man once
             called me beautiful.
                         Stupid,
stupid man.
             I am obese. I am
                         worthless.
I can still feel
             his thumb—
                          warm,
burled—moving
             in my mouth.
                          His thumbnail
a flake

                          of sugar
he would not
             allow me to swallow.
                          Desperate
for the sting of snow
             on my skin,
                          rosary
tight in my fist,
              I walk into
                          a closet, crawl
into a wedding dress.
                         Oh Lord,
here I am.

Credit

Copyright © 2015 by Eduardo C. Corral. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 9, 2015, by the Academy of American Poets.

About this Poem

“I’m having a hard time writing poems that surprise and challenge me in the wake of my first book. Most of my drafts read like rehashed older work. I’m waiting for a snippet of language or an image to lead me into new terrain. I know it will happen. I have to be patient. ‘Ceremonial’ is one of the few poems that have escaped my notebooks. It’s a poem that unsettles me. I often wish I’d never written it. The hurt that triggered the language still pulses inside me.”
Eduardo C. Corral