Hatching the Death Egg
In memoriam, to mother
The woman is hatching
a hallow egg:
barely moving
she looks for
a bed
to die.
It’s not the one where she made love.
It’s not her mother’s either.
It’s her daughters’.
She stays there awhile —
hatching is
almost over.
The woman is
a child
playing
again
until the end.
Portrait in Syllables & Mixed Languages
“i found god in myself & i loved her
I loved her fiercely –”
Ntozake Shange
Ive never been good at cooking,
& here i am: mixin’ ancestries and languages—
Romanian in itself is an adulterous Romance language
full with words from others
bc they have overstayed their welcome: Romans, Turks, Russians
they came there like a river carries its mud and sorrows
or maybe
I dunno, maybe, bc the country’s compass doesnt turn Romance
left and right
and up and down.
We let travelers, străini, flâneurs
be with us & offered them our proverbial
pâine cu sare.
Which reminds me that I’ve started cookin’ smth,
no idea what!
I move backwards as foolproof mnemonic device:
and I remember that i was cooking
myself, reinventing,
the body does that – the last, desperate shot at fame,
only IDC,
fame is no biggie for me.
I need to make sure that what I do does not ever
erase my birthmark:
it’s not a burden of being white but of being (a) woman
who fights with God and his alleged apple.
But maybe God is a woman who wanted to cook a pie
turned her head for a split second and saw a bite into
a fallen apple.
If woman is a fugitive that’s
bc, like language, she’s never
fully done —
necoaptă.
Raw, in Reverse
Playing with a fork on
a barely touched meal
he sighed.
She didn’t say a word–
Took a sip of water.
He tried again
to eat.
“This tastes like shrapnel.”
A war lasts longer after it’s declared
over. She looked for something
underneath the table.
“I need air.”
She put on a diver’s mask.
By the time she was at the door
the whole place disintegrated under water. On second thought,
A postcard from a distant galaxy.