Molly McGuire
from SELF-PORTRAIT AS TULLA LARSEN
I.
Everything in the world is made of men’s bodies.
Cobblestoned roads, potholes, gas stations
and trains: men’s bodies. The walls of the alley:
top hats converging in the distance, pedestaled
by men. Everywhere I go, I must walk past lines
of men’s mouths. Honey, they say; they say, Beautiful.
They converge in the distance, long straight columns
with turned, tilted heads. They name me Legs.
They name me Good enough
to eat. The only way is straight ahead—what’s wrong,
honey, you some kind of manhater? I lift my chin,
I lift my hand. Look, can’t you take a compliment?
You look good. You look good. My dress is long,
my dress is translucent.
II.
He halos my head and halos my ecstatic naked
body, my mutilated body, cut off right at the
entrance to womb. Without legs, without arms,
he can make me stay put. Pin down my mystery,
slap a frame around me swimming with sperms.
To the artist, there’s really only one kind
of woman: the Madonna is the whore.
III.
My hair breaks around his head—
a river around a rock. My hair folds,
enfolding him like massive labia.
My hair falls quiet down my back,
and then it is the scream in his sky.
He tries to leave but he’s all knotted in my hair. He tries to cut me from his
canvas but my hair creeps into his side of the frame, will not be contained, my hair
becomes his hair, becomes the sky,
becomes ocean. It rivulets down
his neck—blood where I suck him,
blood on the sheets. My waves break
around his head—a river of blood.
IV.
Here I am, naked, tip-toed,
and here is man’s scaffolding:
cranium, spine, ribcage, pelvic
bone. I fling my arms around his
bony neck, interrupting our waltz
for a kiss. The danger of throwing
myself at this gangle, this oblivion—
my lips knock against calcified
mandible, his sharp phalanges
bruise the small of my back.
Left patella knocks my knee—
right femur, tibia, and fibula thrust
between my legs—bones at awkward
angles, unsteady, nothing to keep him
from crumbling entirely, except
for my steady grip.
See how I make love into life, how
my kiss creates sinew, muscle, skin,
for man to wrap his structure in?
He’s gained weight. He looks less
deathy now, in the foreground,
scaffolding enough for us both.
And with this kiss, which still continues,
I create other things. A window, sill,
curtains—a home of my own invention.
But, though I create, he’s taller
and his arms encase. My hands lie
idle against his chest.
Clothed now, in fabrics black as hair,
barely distinguishable—we could be one
figure. Our faces no longer individual,
melting into each other, bones floating
beneath skin, rubbing and grinding,
recombining into one body.
Woodcut on tan card, the knotty grain
of the block running through the crisp
black embrace, as if someone cut a tree
and found us trapped inside, embedded
in stump. Count the rings—how long
have we endured this position? No longer
kissing, because one featureless face
with two necks can’t kiss itself.
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