Marlene Hawthrone

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  broken girl healing woman shaman I have to smooth my soothing salve Because no one else will Broken woman healing girl Shaman I have to smooth my soothing salve Because no one else will, 2011
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  do crooked little girls grow into gnarled women condom wrappers scratch at young thighs beneath cheap thread count a rhetorical pillowcase tear soaked do crooked little girls grow into gnarled women a rheumatoid forest perpetually awaiting autumn, 2011
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  drops from the clenched mouths of eyes dreaming delusion fogged by what greets each morning we’d rather form keloid from it to worry at when one hand grasps at the other, 2011

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  he buried love’s bones deep within hoping to resurrect her, 2011
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  her womb smells of rubbing alcohol swore she heard the laughter of sons their vacant faces still born gaze barren red hurt translucent wings beating against the gold sky she would have named you all, 2011
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  how soon before you become mista conjured wispa thumb sliding over broken glass shard yolk easing yellow over shell fragments, 2011

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  I carry sulfur on my wings Your teeth are flint Glinting beneath the milky moon, 2011
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  I have no footing even in slumberHe says he’s a manYet a man who robs youOf your safea soft boned memoryhe’s sucked dry the marrow, 2011
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  I long to be a sharpened knife Digging into a cheek My name breaking shore Over his teeth A moon pulled tide A waterlogged mention, 2011

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  I wonder
  Do crooked little girls grow into gnarled women
  Knobby limbs curled defensively around frail body
  Brittle brown trunk
  Do crooked little girls grow into gnarled women
  Do their leaves shrivel, crackled off splintered branches
  At the mention o, 2011
• 
  imperfect man I’ve imagined you in the cool dark Swilling whiskey like water Newport smoke wafting to the heavens The glass shards Pierced the palm Your brow A sweaty welt You gathered My sister Her belongings, 2011
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  isopropyl alcohol
  sweating your wrinkled belly
  worn from births
  soft like velvet
  into it you sank insulin needles
  I mirrored
  your wincing, 2011

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  it was too soon
  to swill a new name in your mouth
  he brought with him
  muddy silence
  a dragging stain
  across the yellow seeds
  you deafened
  became powder between the fingers
  how soon will he crumble into memory
  a used casing
  in the stale soil, 2011
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  I’ve been
  Water
  Washing away some sin
  Molasses
  Sticking to the jags
  Glue Losing its tack
  Hair Clogging a drain
  Understudy
  Hoping for a sprained ankle
  Repentance
  Tucked away in prayer
  But God wanted me to forgive myself
  First, 2011
• 
  mami says you have fallen
  your brittle bones
  cannot knit themselves well, 2011

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  my sister’s fingers, beak-pecked
  my brother’s brow, a crimson slice
  yellow bird
  perhaps you fled through the window
  while I was sleeping, 2011
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  pomegranate
  someone’s sought after apple
  forced open/picked through
  savored, sweet sucked on flesh clean off bone
  seeds spit out
  my peeled back skin
  left to bake dry
  your shelf was threadbare
  only good
  because you were starving, 2011
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  scales glinted
  laughter mocking the sunshine
  metal blade against the iridescent crescent
  plotting, 2011

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  She kept two free
  Daddy would have murdered had
  He learned years before, 2011
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  shell
  and yolk
  glued
  and cracked respectively
  no carton to keep her, 2011
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  sometimes
  I wonder if all along
  You saw me unravel
  Witnessed the spool
  And thought I’d keep even stitches, 2011

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  the red globes bloomed from my fingertips she always told me never to cry in water for fear that tears would turn to blood these days I swim in a sanguine sea, 2011
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  the way silence
  tentacles around the neck
  renders us mute
  she’s gone
  I can’t find her
  Neither will you, 2011
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  you hold out palms to empty places
  await the voice
  to remind you
  that you’re beautiful
  safety
  those days you have trouble believing it
  echoes don’t even respond
  lonely, 2011

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  you try to mend you left many legs crawling a nail carving into the belly a gnaw you are silent you do not care to know you’ve had your fill you pick remnants from your teeth fling them at the floor, 2011
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  you won’t remember
  my name
  how the comb caught tangles
  the apron sponging tears
  the powder you’d dot your breasts with
  the silver rivers in your hair
  the bubble of vegetables in simmering pot, warbled alabanzas
  the hairpins stabbing my scalp
  affix, 2011