"The Bodied Sling" Poetry Collection
by Christina Trimarco '12
Late
You are burrowed back, scratches and furrows of pale skin
peeking out from the braided tears, each wriggle live and hungry,
each suckle raw the patient in, out, in, out
of breath. Your oven breath and teeth like city grates
that chew the loose, littering film of my forehead, tongues lost,
halved to other bodies, other skins.
The broken of your back is full and dripping,
stumbling onto my palms which I press
hard to your collarbone and alone
you are borne and bursting and I grip,
am bodiless and climbing.
The Boy
In reaction to a dream
You want him back, but he wriggles in my hand,
a sallow animal gutted and shirking its skin
like trees shed their gaudy crowns of sun and ray
in the sinking time. My dress flickers
to the battered breath of wind, but you
are smeared and smearing, settled
in the horizon’s wrinkles.
I handle
what must be our son, his pores
like sockets squirm, rounding themselves
on each other, emptying the soft wrappers of flesh
which circle and curl in rinds and drop
to the leaves. We built him from seeds, grated
our wallflower sex till there he sat unraveled
and naming its body to the earth.
Eat him, I say, and you do full-lipped,
basin-mouthed, his hair mossing
the corners of your lips. We make meal of it,
your tongue haunting the smooth bulbs
of your cheeks.
And soon we are all breath, branding
our yells to the open, each step licked our feet, peppering
the soles gritty and mustard, pollen swelling up our hems,
to bud new in the fabric.
Mother Ode
Mother, I wish to crawl
your marrow and tongue the cells
that catch in the blue of my teeth, savor
the burdened gurgling of your organ.
My mouth is tied to your tissue and I
return to the breast.
From me, your eggs hang low,
the heavy scooped bellies of clocks
electric, and I am lioness skimming your body.
Like a spoon I am your modern lover,
white and heaving I clean
each milky shell, haunches broad
and I make mammoth the skull of your breath.
* Above poems are part of a collection awarded runner up in the Goronwy Owen Prize category for best collection of poems as part of the 2012 English Literary Awards.
