underneath cold water pretending to be Ophelia
in january 2006
with wildflowers which dried and hurried to freeze
bugs and twigs
beside the grandfather grandmother tree
IM FUCKING BLEEDING PLEASE HELP ME
as I swallow dirt after heapfuls of dirt
and float up to
float up to
float beside you ghost
MOUTHFULS OF EARTH OF MY MOTHER FATHER BROTHER LOVER
and spit it out and spit it out and spit it out
YUCK
fucking vile piece of earth tainted by so many layers of duff lifted up to soon
for your MODERNITY
and the bamboo forest screaming with bats
scratching behind my back at the Arden fair
trails behind behind the forest
and the young tender flesh of the bamboo meat
my mother being so open to me taking the kitchen knife into the ground to lift it up
as if reading a single article about how it takes ten years to train to cut YOUNG FLESHY UNDERGROUND bamboo is enough
when i hold the kitchen knife in between my teeth
between cutting different pieces of bamboo
and carrying long 20 feet pieces of it through the
annals of my childhood
(you know what I am referring to.. the Morris library at the University of Delaware? we dragged FOUR pieces of bamboo into its lobby in winter, and the snow was pink and sparkly)
when you see me grit my teeth and bare it
how could you not know i have heaps of dirt covering my teeth
and underneath I am screaming so very loudly for help
but when i look down, I see myself, BOCA ARRIBA, the gauze, the genocide, the hospital, the Palestinian and half-Palestinian crying like a siren and no one listening
silence all around
and all i am is some ... flesh-book in the library that recorded all the stories she has ever heard, and together they make a beautiful sound called noise
