M.S. Attack and other poems

You never got to show 

Him your love, 

Your father who hit you 

With the hockey stick

You stole, hit you 

In that dark closet

For every goal

You would ever score.

He died before 

You could give it back

Close the closet door

Gaping hole of love 

Left forever open

Shut it with fists

Crashing down upon

His skull, dead already

Cracked-open.

Father gone, no need now

to take the boy who didn’t

Bow down

Had the better bike

To Crocodile Lake,

Defy him to jump

Into jaw-infested waters.

Now, you lure 

With gold-flecked eyes

Crocodile grin

Sweet crooked words.

Bring him inside

That same dark closet

Next, strip away 

Clothes, accomplishments

Spit words upon words 

Upon his naked, 

Shivering, body: 

Faggot, worthless fool

Never amount to much

If he resists, fights back

Your fists will do 

For a hockey stick

His head the ball

Hammer hammer

Pound pound

Right into the ground

Make him grovel   

Make him small

Now aren’t you tall! 

Once a promising

naturalist, she winds around

the house collecting

dust, picking up toys,

pieces of herself.

Keeps march time

to the laundry drum,

kettle whistle. Too many

gaping mouths —

the stove’s devouring fire,

baby’s howl that tears

a hole in her heart

and she unable to stop 

the blood, step back outside. 

Our eyes met

across the room.

Oceans converged.

        1.

Child in a woman’s body, you crawl 

furiously, break the confines 

of your mind, this space that binds 

you to this moment that is not 

you. Threads fraying, memories 

unshackled  You catch them one

by one — fire that burnt your finger, 

chasing purple-pink butterflies, 

velvet crayons. The stream 

of specialists show you how 

put one foot before the next, 

take a shower. 2 + 2 = 4, not 

1972, the year of your birth.  

You’ve learned this before —

bright short threads.

 

         2.

 Your desire to fashion space, 

redesign your childhood —

put on hold. No longer seek

solutions in moldy newspapers,

overflowing furniture, empty bottles 

and tins accumulated by your mother

over years. You wanted only 

to bring in light.

How to bring it into the womb?

Now, behind drawn curtains 

dissect endless highways of nerves 

colliding in jumbled pools,

piles of clutter, arrested motion

un- mapping your vision. 

Form to formlessness —

the world turns blind. What would

Nietzsche have said, you wonder.

 

         3.

You loved to mold your body

into cosmic geometry —

Trikonasana, Ardhamukhavasana.

Absorb the ocean’s ebb and flow.

Loved to taste life from eyes, nose, mouth,

                                             cunt, ass.

New life you will never grow. Strangled. 

Your D.J. mind spins traces of color,

sounds. Meaning dammed

in bloodless pools.

 

         4.

Ancient paths usurped by new gods:

Cytoxin, Rebiff, Avonex, Copazone.

A rainbow of pills now mark the hours:

blues for morning, pink for afternoon.

White-robed guardians extract

penance: nausea, depression, a liver perhaps.

No desire save to kill yourself.

small price to pay for an extra day alive.

body forgot its original path, and you are blind

Without maps, surveillance

using scalpels, stethoscopes, MRIs —

only the new Gods have directions.

 

         5.

 Stubborn child, you refuse to accept

your body’s transgressions.

Kali, Saraswati, Sita, Lakshmi, Devi,

sweet mother — how did you let this happen?

How to bear this double betrayal? 

No more dictates from New Gods!

Call forth ancient mediators.

From village to city bring

roots, leaves, bark, berries —

recall celestial music, revive

sleeping rhythms.

Hear me liver! Hear me body!

Hear me sleeping mother —

wake up! Reabsorb the hemorrhages

into the flow of life. Direct my will

in the way of stars. Give me this!

Give me this! Give me this!                                            — for Anuradha Sahni