“Frida Kahlo to Diego,” or “the ways my body feels empty sometimes”
by Jamila Woods
sack of pearls
bones rolling about
i am a marble maze
i rattle
my skin is the raw pink of a de-veined shrimp on a skewer
a steel spear to my uterus
i cooked
in a hospital bed for an eternity until i grew tough
tough enough to watch my limbs go bad without flinching
log leg
sever me timbers
"feet,
what do i need them for?"
i am anything but soft around the edges
i am no fleshy maiden with femurs like cat whiskers and holes
stretching open easy like balloons at the first push of a lip
this
is an apple pussy
stiff
as a wormhole
mealy meat and
no seeds
god dammit
never any seeds
he
has a mountain belly
hot cigar breath makes a canvas of my neck
a foggy window Haaah
and then a dragging of his fingers through his own mist
i am a wet car
all metal with rusty skin beneath this iron girdle
holding what's left of my organs in
a spear to my uterus
tell me this:
do the parts of me living feel him more intensely on behalf of the parts of me buried?
or
do my fallen limbs lie trembling like freshly shed lizards' tails
leaving this rotted wood carcass to feel everything in shallow reverberations. . .
he can never plant seeds.
we will never grow trees.
sever me timbers.
"feet?"
i am a vased flower tricking bees
smell sweet, no pollen treats
uprooted
but
he keeps coming back
smelling of other lilies
always
nose dusted with yellow soot
not mine,
but still coming
flushing me purple
crushing me into a feathered mattress
an avalanche to my chest
a burying and redigging up
a lolling in my pulp
after love,
inventory.
he shakes me
to see if I still live and
we listen for the rattle
JAMILA WOODS is a Chicago-native living in Providence, RI, who writes poetry, plays, and
sometimes fiction. In 2010 she was named “Best Female Poet” at the College Unions Poetry Slam
Invitational (CUPSI) and was a member of the 2010 Providence slam team at the National Poetry
Slam in St. Paul, MN. She currently attends Brown University and plans to concentrate in Africana
Studies and Performance Studies.
sack of pearls
bones rolling about
i am a marble maze
i rattle
my skin is the raw pink of a de-veined shrimp on a skewer
a steel spear to my uterus
i cooked
in a hospital bed for an eternity until i grew tough
tough enough to watch my limbs go bad without flinching
log leg
sever me timbers
"feet,
what do i need them for?"
i am anything but soft around the edges
i am no fleshy maiden with femurs like cat whiskers and holes
stretching open easy like balloons at the first push of a lip
this
is an apple pussy
stiff
as a wormhole
mealy meat and
no seeds
god dammit
never any seeds
he
has a mountain belly
hot cigar breath makes a canvas of my neck
a foggy window Haaah
and then a dragging of his fingers through his own mist
i am a wet car
all metal with rusty skin beneath this iron girdle
holding what's left of my organs in
a spear to my uterus
tell me this:
do the parts of me living feel him more intensely on behalf of the parts of me buried?
or
do my fallen limbs lie trembling like freshly shed lizards' tails
leaving this rotted wood carcass to feel everything in shallow reverberations. . .
he can never plant seeds.
we will never grow trees.
sever me timbers.
"feet?"
i am a vased flower tricking bees
smell sweet, no pollen treats
uprooted
but
he keeps coming back
smelling of other lilies
always
nose dusted with yellow soot
not mine,
but still coming
flushing me purple
crushing me into a feathered mattress
an avalanche to my chest
a burying and redigging up
a lolling in my pulp
after love,
inventory.
he shakes me
to see if I still live and
we listen for the rattle
JAMILA WOODS is a Chicago-native living in Providence, RI, who writes poetry, plays, and
sometimes fiction. In 2010 she was named “Best Female Poet” at the College Unions Poetry Slam
Invitational (CUPSI) and was a member of the 2010 Providence slam team at the National Poetry
Slam in St. Paul, MN. She currently attends Brown University and plans to concentrate in Africana
Studies and Performance Studies.