Goddess of the After-Effect
by Anna Binkovitz
“Men put them on trains and under them. Violence makes them celestial.”
-Leslie Jamison
A zodiac wheel of scars. Telescope
to the moonscape of bruised thighs.
Read the bloodied toilet bowl
like tea leaves. And that wasn’t even
one of the cruel boys. City life dims the stars
of reminder, grants me a blank face. Beauty
of a ravaged universe. Extravagant proof
of his power. Oh, the things he could’ve done
to you if he’d gotten there first.
The mars rover sings itself happy birthday.
Find the farthest reaches of our sympathy.
Poor, lonely machine, let us lay our soil
under you, here, take this dust of us home.
No, the galaxy says nothing. Just expands,
explodes, swallows what is too heavy.
-Leslie Jamison
A zodiac wheel of scars. Telescope
to the moonscape of bruised thighs.
Read the bloodied toilet bowl
like tea leaves. And that wasn’t even
one of the cruel boys. City life dims the stars
of reminder, grants me a blank face. Beauty
of a ravaged universe. Extravagant proof
of his power. Oh, the things he could’ve done
to you if he’d gotten there first.
The mars rover sings itself happy birthday.
Find the farthest reaches of our sympathy.
Poor, lonely machine, let us lay our soil
under you, here, take this dust of us home.
No, the galaxy says nothing. Just expands,
explodes, swallows what is too heavy.
Anna Binkovitz is a Minneapolis-based poet and teacher. A 2014 graduate of Macalester College receiving departmental honors in creative writing, her work is forthcoming or has appeared in The Offing, Words Dance, voicemail poems, and elsewhere. Anna spends her free time eating macaroni and arguing with her dog, Franklin.