Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Gloria Anzaldúa, "The Coatlicue State/La Herencia de Coatlicue"


protean being
dark     dumb     windowless     no moon glides
across the stone     the nightsky     alone     alone
no lights just mirrorwalls     obsidian     smoky     in the
mirror she sees     a woman with four heads     the heads
turning round and round     spokes of a wheel     her neck
is an axle     she stares at each face     each wishes the
other not there     the obsidian knife in the air     the
building     so high     should she jump     would she feel
the breeze     fanning her face     tumbling down the steps
of the temple     heart offered up to the sun     wall
growing thin     thinner     she is eyeless     a mole
burrowing deeper     tunneling here     tunneling there
tunneling through the air  in the photograph a double
image     a ghost arm alongside the flesh one     inside her
head     the cracks ricocheting      bisecting
crisscrossing     she hears the rattlesnakes     stirring in
a jar     being fed with her flesh      she listens to the
seam between dusk and dark     they are talking     she hears
their frozen thumpings     the soul encased     in black
obsidian     smoking     smoking     she bends to catch a
feather of herself     as she falls     lost in the
silence     of the empty air     turning      turning
at midnight     turning into a wild pig     how to get back
all the feathers     put them in the jar     the rattling
full circle and back     dark     windowless    no moon
glides across the nightsky     nightsky     night

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