In
a reticule of sunlight among grass-blades
I
howled up my sisters. They wouldn’t come.
Curlews
dissevered the sky. The quiet stalks
flicked
grasshoppers at me. I feel it now
when
I think with nerves only.
Deadly elder stank
that
insects were epileptic in. Three years old, I howled.
Accused
the sun which cuffed me back like a lout.
Howled
till my frenzy was one performing scare
that
left only twitching air where insects were,
though
the careless tropic grass ignored me.
This
the first memory of life I have:
gullet
strained inside out, a scream so rigid
I
seemed crucified to it, just sent for this, abandoned,
flakking
to mar the innocent untired day,
a
nailed-up chimney of scold livid in the grass,
the
dim interior of child blood turned out,
for
I did not want my chaos.
And do not want it now.
Depositing
into nervous thought I feel
invisible
shards flick by me and green sash
sprout
an interior almost up to my eyes,
a
hot light banging me between the eyes
and
the ceiling above me being torn like paper.
The
blood bangs and I stiffen and the blood
can
bolt nowhere, implodes. I know
that
those three sisters left when I was three
and
chaos returning cannot be shrilled away.
