una oración (bruja’s soliloquy)
I arrived one body-part at a time.
First, the scalloped middle,
blue-roped torso. Eyes, nose & ears,
blood-licked. Then the blur of this electric mouth,
the wet unfolding of my arms, legs & fists.
The last, of course—this cauldron of a cunt.
The nurses delivered me to my parents
on a dinner plate. Father howled.
Mother thinned down to a milkless shadow.
I have always been a god-hammered girl.
Dirty as a turnip, I crawled into
the blind center of the earth
a worm built to outlast the swallow.
When I was young, I kissed the girls too hard,
riddled my tongue with a father’s profanity—
I thought this was how to become a boy.
Bent daughter of a six-fisted man,
I wanted the safety of a cock. Permission
to roar. Dumb as the moon, I knew
nothing of this body
other than the violence it ignited,
how my bones reeked of motor oil—
my every opening a socket to blacken
every thieving finger.
Who would ever choose to be
the damaged house?
Better to be the demolition gender.
Cinder block & dog-rotted
I strutted the world. Turned the mirrors
& swore off every version of myself.
It wasn’t until the third
time my body was taken
from me I learned how to love it.
Now I walk the streets
forcing men into uncomfortable eye
contact: You wanna fuck with me?
I wanna fuck with you.
What greater burden, what more
unconquerable revolt is there than that
of a resurrected woman?
Ripe with vengeance, I termite.
Tomorrow I’ll button my blouse
with a dozen kitchen knives &
cast your dreamless skulls
into the cemetery soil
& that’s just breakfast.
I own my blud. What you borrowed
I will come back for.
Scratch your name into a coffin nail,
bind it in hair & wax
an ungentle ceremony
for your ungentle hands.
O captive, my captive!
I have coined your suffering song,
have driven you back into your
hellish light.
Let the drilling of the worms
be your only sermon,
the wasting of your flesh
a salvaged psalm.
Listen: anything holy
is not reversible.
There isn’t a man alive
who could undo me.
—Rachel McKibbens, from blud (Copper Canyon Press, 2017)