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    The Hunger Moon: New and Selected Poems, 1980-2010

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      hunger, always hungry

      a woman made of pain.

      A cat or dog approaches another,

      they sniff noses. They sniff behinds.

      They bristle or lick. They fall

      in love as often as we do,

      as passionately. But they fall

      in love or lust with furry flesh,

      not silicon breasts or push up bras

      rib removal or liposuction.

      It is not for male or female dogs

      that poodles are clipped

      to topiary hedges.

      If only we could like each other raw.

      If only we could love ourselves

      like healthy babies burbling in our arms.

      If only we were not programmed and reprogrammed

      to need what is sold us.

      Why should we want to live inside ads?

      Why should we want to scourge our softness,

      to straight lines like a Mondrian painting?

      Why should we punish each other with scorn

      as if to have a large ass

      were worse than being greedy or mean?

      When will women not be compelled

      to view their bodies as science projects,

      gardens to be weeded,

      dogs to be trained?

      When will a woman cease

      to be made of pain?

      Elegy in rock, for Audre Lorde

      A child, I cherished a polyhedron of salt

      my father brought up from under Detroit,

      the pure crystal from a deep mine.

      The miracle was it felt hard and clear

      as glass and yet the tongue said tears.

      My other treasure was a polished shard

      of anthracite that glittered on my palm,

      harder, fiercer than the soft coal

      we shoveled into the basement furnace.

      Coal halfway to a diamond?

      More than once we talked about rocks

      for which you had a passion, curiosity

      fired by adventure, reading the landscape

      with eye and pick, cliffs that confided

      in a lover’s whisper their history.

      Obsidian, the obvious: it can take

      an edge, can serve as a knife

      in ritual or in combat, as your fine

      dark deep voice could pour out love

      or take an edge like a machete.

      Carnelian lips, black and rose marble

      metamorphosed rock blasted into beauty:

      but what you are now that only the work

      remains is garnet, not a flashy

      jewel, native, smoldering, female.

      Garnet: the blackest red,

      color of the inner woman, of deep sex,

      color of the inside of the lid closed tight

      while the eye still searches

      for light in itself.

      Sand is the residue,

      the pulverized bones of mountains.

      Here on the great beach in summer

      the sea rolls over and bares

      slabs of tawny sand that glitter:

      little buffed worlds of garnet

      pool like the shadows of old blood

      under the sun’s yellow stare.

      On my palm they wink, this shading

      like rouge stippling the sand.

      You told me of a garnet big as a child’s

      head, you told me of garnets glowing

      like women’s stories pulled from the dust,

      garnets you freed into the sun,

      lying on your palm like summer nights.

      Rich darkness I praise, dark richness,

      the true color of a live pulsing heart,

      blackberries in strong sunlight,

      crow’s colors, black tulip chalices,

      the city sky glowering from the plain.

      Audre, Audre, your work shines on the night

      of the world, the blaze of your words

      but your own female power and beauty

      are gone, a garnet ground into powder

      and dissolved in wine the earth drinks.

      All systems are up

      You dial and a voice answers.

      After you have stammered a reply

      into dead air, you realize

      it cannot hear or know you.

      The preprogrammed voice of a thing

      addresses you as a retarded dog:

      Press 0 if you wish to be connected

      to emergency services. Press 1

      to order a product. Press 2

      to speak to an agent. Press 3

      if you need assistance.

      Have a nice day.

      I press 3. I need information.

      Another robot says, Press 1

      if you wish to order a product.

      Press 2 to speak to an agent

      —who bleeds? Press 3 if

      you need further assistance.

      I press 3. The voice says,

      You have pressed 3.

      That is not a valid number.

      Please press 4 and make

      another choice. I press 4.

      The canned voice speaks:

      Press 3 if you desire euthanasia.

      Press 2 if you wish to detonate.

      Press 1 never to have been born.

      Press 0 for universal Armageddon.

      Have a nice day.

      For two women shot to death in Brookline, Massachusetts

      How dare a woman choose?

      Choose to be pregnant

      choose to be childless

      choose to be lesbian

      choose to have two lovers or none

      choose to abort

      choose to live alone

      choose to walk alone

      at night

      choose to come and to go

      without permission

      without leave

      without a man.

      Consider a woman’s blood

      spilled on a desk,

      pooled on an office floor,

      an ordinary morning at work,

      an ordinary morning of helping

      other women choose

      to be or not to be

      pregnant.

      A woman young and smiling

      sitting at a desk

      trying to put other woman at ease

      now bleeds from five

      large wounds, bleeding

      from her organs

      bleeding out her life.

      A young man is angry at women

      women who say no

      women who say maybe and mean no

      women who won’t

      women who do and they shouldn’t.

      If they are pregnant they are bad

      because that proves

      they did it with someone,

      they did it

      and should die.

      A man gets angry with a woman who decides to leave him

      who decides to walk off

      who decides to walk

      who decides.

      Woman are not real to such men.

      They should behave as meat.

      Such men drag them into the woods

      and stab them

      climb in their windows and rape them

      such men shoot them in kitchens

      such men strangle them in bed

      such men lie in wait

      and ambush them in parking lots

      such men walk into a clinic

      and kill the first woman they see.

      In harm’s way:

      meaning in the way of a man

      who is tasting his anger

      like rare steak.

      A daily ordinary courage

      doing what has to be done

      every morning, every afternoon

      doing it over and over

      because it is needed

      put them in harm’s way.

      Two women dying

      because they did their job

      helping other women survive.

      Two women dead


      from the stupidity of an ex–altar boy

      who saw himself

      as a fetus

      who pumped his sullen fury

      automatically

      into the woman in front of him

      twice, and intended more.

      Stand up now and say No More.

      Stand up now and say We will not

      be ruled by crazies and killers,

      by shotguns and bombs and acid.

      We will not dwell in the caves of fear.

      We will make each other strong.

      We will make each other safe.

      There is no other monument.

      A day in the life

      She is wakened at 4 a.m.

      Of course she does not

      pick up, but listens

      through the answering machine

      to the male voice promising

      she will burn in hell.

      At seven she opens her door.

      A dead cat is hammered

      to her porch: brown tabby.

      Hit by a car, no collar.

      She hugs her own Duke of Orange.

      She cannot let him out.

      She has her car locked

      in a neighbor’s garage,

      safe from pipe bombs,

      but she must walk there.

      She drives to work

      a circuitous guesswork route.

      Outside the clinic three

      men walk in circles with photos

      of six-month fetuses.

      They surround her car.

      They are forbidden the parking

      lot but police don’t care.

      They bang on her hood.

      As she gets out, they bump

      and jostle her. One thrusts

      his sign into her face.

      She protects her eyes.

      Something hard strikes her back.

      Inside she sighs. Turns on

      the lights, the air

      conditioning, the coffee

      machine. The security system

      is always on. The funds

      for teenage contraception,

      gone into metal detectors.

      She answers the phone.

      “Is this where you kill babies?”

      The second call a woman

      is weeping. The day begins.

      A girl raped by her stepfather,

      a harried mother with too

      many children and diabetes,

      a terrified teenager who does

      not remember how it happened,

      a woman with an injunction

      against an abuser. All day

      she takes their calls,

      all day she checks them in,

      takes medical histories,

      holds hands, dries tears,

      hears secrets and lies and

      horrors, soothes, continues.

      Every time a new patient

      walks in, a tinny voice

      whispers, is this the one

      carrying a handgun, with

      an automatic weapon, with

      a knife? She sits exposed.

      She answers the phone,

      “I’m going to cut your throat,

      you murderer.” “Have

      a nice day.” A bomb threat

      is called in. She has

      to empty the clinic.

      The police finally come.

      There is no bomb. The

      doctor tells her how they

      are stalking his daughter.

      Then she goes home to Duke.

      Eats a late supper by the TV.

      Her mother calls. Her

      boyfriend comes over. She

      cries in his arms. He is,

      she can tell, getting tired

      of her tears. Next morning

      she rises and day falls

      on her like a truckload

      of wet cement. This is

      a true story, this is

      what I know of virtue,

      this is what I know

      of goodness in our time.

      The grey flannel sexual harassment suit

      The woman in the sexual harassment

      suit should be a virgin

      who attended church every Sunday,

      only ten thousand miles on her

      back and forth to the pew.

      Her immaculate house is

      bleached with chlorine tears.

      The woman in the sexual harassment

      suit should never have known

      a man other than her father

      who kissed her only

      on the cheek, and the minister

      who patted her head

      with his gloves on.

      The woman in the sexual harassment

      suit is visited by female

      angels only, has a platinum

      hymen protected by Brinks,

      is white of course as unpainted

      plaster, naturally blonde

      and speaks only English.

      The woman in the sexual harassment

      suit wears white cotton blouses

      buttoned to the throat, small

      pearl clip-on earrings,

      grey or blue suits and one

      inch heels with nylons.

      Her nails and lips are pink.

      If you are other than we have

      described above, please do

      not bother to complain.

      You are not a lady.

      We cannot help you.

      A woman like you simply

      cannot be harassed.

      On guard

      I want you for my bodyguard,

      to curl round each other like two socks

      matched and balled in a drawer.

      I want you to warm my backside,

      two S’s snaked curve to curve

      in the down burrow of the bed.

      I want you to tuck in my illness,

      coddle me with tea and chicken

      soup whose steam sweetens the house.

      I want you to watch my back

      as knives wink in the thin light

      and whips crack out from shelter.

      Guard my body against dust and disuse,

      warm me from the inside out,

      lie over me, under me, beside me

      in bed as the night’s creek

      rushes over our shining bones

      and we wake to the morning fresh

      and wet, a birch leaf just uncurling.

      Guard my body from disdain as age

      widens me like a river delta.

      Let us guard each other until death,

      with teeth, brain and galloping heart,

      each other’s rose red warrior.

      The thief

      Dina sent me a postcard,

      history at a glance,

      Sonka of the golden hand,

      the notorious thief

      being put in chains.

      She looks young still, dark hair,

      unsmiling—why would she?

      1915, surrounded by Russian men

      two blacksmiths preparing

      the chains and three soldiers

      to guard her, weaponless.

      A Jew from Odessa, she could

      move faster than water

      as quiet as a leaf growing

      more lightly than a shaft

      of sun tapping your arm.

      Like all young women

      she was full of desires

      little hot pomegranate seeds

      bursting in her womb,

      wishes crying from the dull

      mirror of poverty.

      Sonka heard the voices calling

      from inside the coins,

      take me, Sonka, take me

      turn me into something sweet

      turn me into something warm and soft

      a cashmere shawl, a silk mantilla

      a coat of fur like a bed of loving.

      Eat me, said the chicken.

      drink me, the brandy sang.

      Wear me, the blouse whispered.

      Sonka of the go
    lden hands

      stands in the grim yard

      of the prison, with her quick

      hands bound in iron bracelets

      calling with her solemn eyes

      let me go, oh you who stare

      at me and jail me in your

      camera, now at last

      free me to dance again

      as I freed

      those captured coins.

      Belly good

      A heap of wheat, says the Song of Songs

      but I’ve never seen wheat in a pile.

      Apples, potatoes, cabbages, carrots

      make lumpy stacks, but you are sleek

      as a seal hauled out in the winter sun.

      I can see you as a great goose egg

      or a single juicy and fully ripe peach.

      You swell like a natural grassy hill.

      You are symmetrical as a Hopewell mound,

      with the eye of the naval wide open,

      the eye of my apple, the pear’s port

      window. You’re not supposed to exist

      at all this decade. You’re to be flat

      as a kitchen table, so children with

      roller skates can speed over you

      like those sidewalks of my childhood

      that each gave a different roar under

      my wheels. You’re required to show

      muscle striations like the ocean

      sand at ebb tide, but brick hard.

      Clothing is not designed for women

      of whose warm and flagrant bodies

      you are a swelling part. Yet I confess

      I meditate with my hands folded on you,

      a maternal cushion radiating comfort.

      Even when I have been at my thinnest,

      you have never abandoned me but curled

      round as a sleeping cat under my skirt.

      When I spread out, so do you. You like

      to eat, drink and bang on another belly.

      In anxiety I clutch you with nervous fingers

      as if you were a purse full of calm.

      In my grandmother standing in the fierce sun

      I see your cauldron that held eleven children

     
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