#rape for ts
PERSEPHONE
My body was never marred;
no dart of Eros
ever pierced my skin.
Where my heart was
a pomegranate is—
how could I be moved?And yet, as he sang,
I watched pale faces
in our hall of ghosts
swaying like a meadow
and memory blossomed.
I saw again
my lost companions
wandering in sunlight
in the upper air.
I walked among them
green and careless,
not hearing the rhythm
of his chariot approaching,
not yet caught
in the sickle
of his arm’s curve.At the field’s edge
I searched for lilies;
never saw the god
whom love had ravaged,
myself the flower
he’d come to gather.
Gregory Orr, Orpheus & Eurydice: A Lyric Sequence (Copper Canyon Press, 2001)
I enjoy talking to the man beyond the wall.
His pants are like one bad triangle.
At home, he can see the statue of liberty
just by sitting on his stoop. I live by the water, too,
in my own way, meaning by its code.When I was fifteen I was new
at my high school and a girl named Dawn
gave an impromptu presentation on water.No one asked her to and she made the poster
in under ten minutes. We do not pay enough attention
to this element, she said to the room. I thought she was crazy,
but I listened. Now, I heard, she does a pretty good deal of ecstasy
and hula-hoops in small but elaborate outfits on the west coast.I asked my co-worker if he felt he had gotten to know the statue of liberty,
watching her from his home like that. I said, have you noticed that she’s walking?
and regretted it immediately. Why am I always challenging people?
In the article I’d been reading at my desk the author asked, out of nowhere,
is this the hill you want to die on? and I didn’t know. I don’t know what hill this.Last March I got beat up at night and it wasn’t anything like I’d always pictured it in my head.
I just crumpled to the ground and blurred as his boot swung in and out of my face.All my life I had trusted in this buried power
that would reveal itself when the time came.I used to keep my backpack on
at the parties my brother would take me to
in various basements around Pelham, New York.
My mother called it skating around the edges.I think I grew up this year. Does saying that negate it?
Do you have to let go of everything to grow up?
How about just most of it?
A group of boys gathered around me in the woods.
Let me light that for you.It seemed normal at first, and then the questions.
Is that too big? Does it hurt?
I didn’t understand why
they were talking about my cigarette like that
until I looked up at the boy who’d fucked me
while I cried the night before and saw him laughing.
His friends had formed a circle around me. They were quoting me.
It hurts, I had said to him. And the next day, they all said it back.
My greatest fantasy has been the same thing for seven years.If I could have any one thing
it would be the chance to go back
just this once to kill them.This is not the hill I want to die on, but I am willing to.
When I realized the statue of liberty was walking
my whole life literally came into focus.
Do you know what that feels like?When your face opens up on the sidewalk and you realize
you might die, but still you are not powerless? For instance,
maybe in the spot you die a poisonous mushroom could grow
and the man who killed you could eat that mushroom.Never mind.
What matters is that I am
will be ready next time.I am not skating around the edges anymore, et cetera.
I thought this poem might be funny. I forgot what My Life So Far has been.
But it has been funny. And if it wasn’t midnight I would tell you in what ways.
Chessy Normile, Great Exodus, Great Wall, Great Party (Copper Canyon Press, 2020)
We don’t get a lot of opportunities to give men feedback.
Personally, I hated being raped.
Chessy Normile, Great Exodus, Great Wall, Great Party (Copper Canyon Press, 2020)
