Splinters Are Children of Wood

by Leia Penina Wilson

  cut with my cunt

  today i learn to cut with my cunt

  to cut with my cunt cut with my cunt cut with my cunt

  cut with my cunt cut with my cunt cut with my cunt cut with my cunt cut with

  my cunt cut with my cunt cut with my cunt cut with my cunt today i learn to

  cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to

  cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to

  cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to

  cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to

  cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to

  cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cut with my cunt to cut with my

  cunt to cut with my cunt to cut with my cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to

  cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to

  cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to

  cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to

  cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to

  cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt to cunt

  WE PLAY

  a hot game

  your tonguemy mouthunmangled

  and folded over

  teeth glow

  men are driven mute

  the dragon’s charlatan comes and goessuch prophecy

  hedges are set ablaze the harvest burned-off

  parts of hercules are flammablethe fires burn them away

  cover your body toohere use these ashes i

  who was a daughter am now a son

  my own end—failure of permission

  or is it ownership

  heavy head

  heavy arms heavy hands

  the epic

  lets death inshe screams

  her mother mourns

  or is worn out

  to eat the sun every night & give birth

  the screaming brat’s a sheep

  shaking a bush

  o where

  o where o

  where is the noonwe waited

  we are youngwhat blood

  is there

  left.

  AM I THE WORLD OR THE GURL

  what can affect

  the conflict

  discourse

  that discursive horse

  if you break its legs

  it won’t be able to run

  it will just die there

  slowly

  in pain

  what else i like

  the sound of

  that distress.

  WE CARVE THE WORLD THE GURL

  am i

  to be

  relieved of

  this life

  —or returned

  i saw

  a rabbit

  caught in

  its own

  deathsoundbodywilt

  a plea

  really—o

  please o

  please oplease o

  please o please o please o please stop

  some untranslatable killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmeplease

  killmepl

  ease

  WE CARVE A PROPHECY

  there is no need for you

  approach meyou will dietake courage if you near

  we all die

  i ate her liver and became her

  i ate her cunt and understood

  o—o—othe difficult task of knowing—

  we are all ambitious

  we all hate one another

  the road gives way

  must the road give way

  WE CARVE A PROPHECY

  we are sleeping

  we sit naked together

  do not speak

  do not smile politely

  do not make eye contact

  do not lookat ourselves

  we devour

  weachillesbarefoot

  scourge of citieshard

  lovedwe are not less cold

  the nearby river is dirty

  the moon does not reflect here

  we cannot get our hands clean

  can i still touch you

  help meam i not your son

  help megoddess of this sea my mother

  would that i could love you better would i

  silencesilentsilent

  contemplationo loss!

  even the sun refuses

  to clothe our hands!

  WE CARVE A PROPHECY THE WORLD OR THE GURL

  i denounce that

  i might not have learned my own tongue but mother

  says it’s in the blood& i am willing

  i will not share your bed though i may grow old

  if you sleep while the sun is down you might dream (of me)

  (you might die)

  & am ipulled awayor let go

  —some horses’ bitchhere

  is a romance as old as time

  & are you mourning toomy loss or yours

  do you hold my body tenderor trophy

  & babyif you could see my face

  you’d write a poem(i would)

  ask toowhy does love love life

  & death

  for the sake

  of its own meaning

  lackofgreennessi denounce that too

  & i want you

  to die firstthat’s the meanness of it

  human life is so ordinary!

  we know nothing we know nothing we know

  nothing we know

  nothing

  & can know nothingi deny myself

  what voices i borrow

  what god was

  like—what god is

  daughter your foot is tragic! now come! & dance

  with me!tell me what you want

  all i want is to eat live eat live eat

  & eat

  & live

  & all i want is for there to be no shame here

  & here

  & here

  & here

  WE CARVE A SPELL GURL

  besides the serpents mother also sent venom from the hydrahallucination

  blindnessragebloodlustall ground finely into a powder

  mixed with fresh blood her blood to a boil

  everything must come to a boil inside a great bronze kettle

  settled into the earth covered with hot rocks ocean rocks

  and coconut fronds tightly woven

  and whatever else you might like for dinner

  mother always careful what was for friend what was foe

  so she stirs with a fresh wand from the hemlock tree

  & she grinds it until it is

  so so fine fine

  massages it into our bodies makes us deadly makes us deadly you cannot touch

  me i am

  untouchabledeadly

  & full

  you’re such a fool.

  WE CARVE A SPELL GURL

  i never see light i learn the dark

  there is ringingthe ringing is nothing

  there is knockingthe knocking is nothing

  i’m emblossomed still i see no thing

  that dark i beat

  so hard i splinter
/>   i burn so brightly

  burn myself away

  the sun stood halfway

  between the night driven off

  and the night newly approaching

  bodies shed

  garments

  o how they glisten

  o how they glisten.

  WE CARVE A SPELL GURL

  naked nymphs beat their breasts & fill the clearing with shrill & startled cries

  WE CARVE A SPELL GURL

  she interrupted eruptswants the one thing to which there never isenough

  she does not know that thingwhatever death is she is nervous about it

  there is a road

  darkened on all sides by funeral yew treesboneless bodiless shades stray

  here

  sluggish styx waitsthat everybody river exhales

  cuntfucking one wasteland into another wasteland

  souls newly come are at a loss to find & yet

  & yet

  &

  WE CARVE A SPELL GURL

  she exposing he

  rself for what she is

  both paternal & perv

  erse captures the maiden

  ’s baffled father

  cuts him

  WE CARVE USO SISTER TO SISTER

  to sisteranother spell sister

  i don’t

  want martyrdom

  my heart

  beats too

  mean yeti imagine

  the swordsman fell

  in love

  let’s settle this

  without the need

  to grieve brothers’

  bodyor watch

  old men fall to old men knees

  i make no apologies

  smooth rocks heat while we wait we

  hack the small limbs off

  bigger kindlingseparate the leaves

  coconut taro bananabraid the fish into it

  i tuck a piece of your hair behind your ear

  you’ve cut itthis imagination

  isn’t mine anymorehow to imagine out of it

  we talk over each other raze each other

  that’s our way how to

  find our way again please

  pass the palusamiplease sit crossed legged and talk to us

  please leave your shoes at the doormother says

  if we work hard we can eat sooner

  she stitches with ink the chimera’s

  image onto my left tit

  when it’s too much she says cut yourself wild again

  let the ocean back out

  is it worseto return empty

  or not at all

  in the poems we all die just another way poetry reflects life another way a woman is made i mean marginalized i mean we lose intimacy i mean i want each loyalty tested can you tell me why hope is always blind is it the world she sits on or some floating inflatable toy i mean if ifi let all the air out will i die from that airor drown by plastic aesthetic i mean is this all there is to know about connection did you really just ignore my textmother always said if you break it it will come true i break a gurl’s body is it true

  i select

  a torch

  steeping in

  blood not

  yet my

  ownput on

  my robe

  of dripping gore

  and a belt

  of live snakes& so appareled i set out

  from home& so appealing i set out from home

  WE CARVE

  the flesh

  of her poetface

  gurlworld

  some other maladyi pull

  down

  make it my maskmine.

  now i drive my cart

  plow my plow

  i recognize my vertigoredness deeply alien

  the faithless eye between us

  ungathered meadows tendering dawn

  fill a ditch

  with blooddrive ghosts away

  that smell

  nationality

  something in each of us waits

  to see the other survive

  severedshe says this casually

  what face

  lets itself be looked at.what face

  can help it.

  i give away

  my mother. mother!wound!

  will it be enoughbring my horn

  my valkyries!

  vengeanceavenged

  o to kill

  the killers!

  WE CARVE

  this skull helen’s.

  this skull marguerite’s.

  this skull matilda’s.

  this skull marianne’s.

  this skull beatrice’s.

  this skull gertrude’s.

  this skull audre’s.

  this skull mary’s.

  this skull virginia’s.

  this skull vera’s.

  this skull nora’s.

  this skull diane’s.

  this skull elizabeth’s.

  this skull gloria’s.

  this skull alice’s.

  this skull cathy’s.

  this skull kathy’s.

  this skull robin’s.

  this skull jane’s.

  this skull leia’s.

  where’s your skull.

  show me yours.

  WE CARVE CONSTANTLY

  does my cunt

  make you

  feel good

  WE CARVE THE LEARNING OUT

  carefully

  you trained me

  to care about thisikeepyouyoukeepme

  we are each kept—

  WE CARVE WITH LOVE SOME SACRIFICE

  i open the body of your newest dog with my own teeth.

  i hope you loved iti hope you loved it and weep now for that loss.

  WE CARVE LOUDLY

  tell me truthfully

  is my only choice—lover! cunt! exile!

  WE CARVE THE WORLD GURL

  must this be love / must i love

  WE CARVE GURL

  or some other birdit’s always a bird isn’t it

  fuck a birda poem

  pigeoneaten out by ratsaved you

  an eyewhat

  an inheritancefrom sacred earth

  to trash-day-mondaythe words

  too many

  wounds inherited

  i guess

  i’ll just

  run off& fall in love

  with a centaur

  anything can be sacredi guess

  nothing is

  WE CARVE THE SPELL GURL AS MANY TIMES AS NEEDED

  o horrible tenderness! battle sweat! it’s noon!

  crinkled wings sour everyman’s facepatroclus

  underlinesyou are not alone

  lonelywithout criticism

  lovethings are whispered

  let me pace

  without fearthe common path

  of death.

  true spring plants chains!profoundest

  sense! city shame!

  almost palatable daffodils!

  blackblack horses!

  new achilles

  wears the horns of a ram

  for luckher family letters here

  for luckbecome a god yourself

  say this prayer guard me against

  guard against me she says

  this world is falling in love

  i have robbed myself

  what god opposes me

  i do not know.

  WE CARVE FROM WHAT’S LEFT OF THIS WORD GURL

  she o unfair she o stop your weeping that ugly face

  with her hand she stretches forth to mine

  a sickle

  unloves my failure

  this fright that kept me up at night

  stay away with me.

  i press my body over her wildness

  as close to the bone as though she were my own skin

  we wrestle

  color overcomes usthat foul cry might have gotten louder

  out of handyet hadn’t
r />   mock-orange horses

  pull a chariot aspiring to rule

  the heavens

  & always sudden the door

  new eternity irises

  before memy heart knowsi pray

  i may never dienor surrender

  nor modesty taint me

  i love youi have

  the disguise of love

  though mother may never recognize me again

  so i sew a black dress

  throw it over myself

  throw it over the dawn throw it over the dawn throw it over the dawn.

  I APPEAR SEEKING REVENGE FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF THOSE CHILDREN

  but this exquisite—

  re: this exquisite wetness.

  what now—

  re: when i have tried and failed i shall have failed.

  high summer is over i return to the sleeping place will you return with me—

  re: the wound.

  am i allowed to win—

  re: the same death the live rabbit formed in rupture are wildthings.

  all the doors of truth are open now to battle—

  re: hold my hand do not let go we will take each other run away with the other.