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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780253032799 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Indiana University Press |
| Publication date: | 03/17/2018 |
| Series: | Blue Light Books |
| Pages: | 94 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.40(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Dying Girl & the Date Palm
Come find me under the black persimmon tree Mama where prayers bear wrinkled fruit bear messages home
Come tend me at sunrise like sweeping a grave offering fresh tortillas
rolled each morning menudo steaming on the stove My patch of yellowing in the grass my lungs culling holes
in the sweet so close to my palms I can nearly grasp What does a mouth hold but secrets What tongue in mine
What bone-handled crotch & tissue paper wadded to staunch the bleeding The boy on the bicycle called my name pulled
it from my mouth like meat from the seed &
A hole in the world Persimmons call themselves stories
of the gods Mama did you also wake into the mythical I mean raise yourself hold the cast of yourself
bones splitting as moonstones as midnight undone Leaves fall across my eyes Mama come find me before I bloom
The Change
When I was still small I began growing antlers as a stag grows antlers as a girl grows breasts My chest remained flat & the blood didn't come but the velvet skin sprang spongy behind my temples No one at school laughed at the antlers like they did when I'd grown hair under my arms & razor-scraped my shins to the blood-bright thrill of the locked bathroom door Mom said she would've given me warm water & lotion if I'd let her in The girls asked could I pierce my antlers like ears or a nose & if they hurt The boys asked were they strong enough to break glass crush tin cans & how long would they grow The doctor said to stick out my tongue & drink peach tea from a soda fountain in the nurse's lounge so I could pee into a cup & prove myself Sometimes a female deer grows a stub He asked if there was any chance I could be growing something else I told Mom there was a boy but it didn't mean anything I couldn't even use a tampon yet Soon small red birds gathered & settled as the velvet turned to bone matured into branches They were too heavy & I knew I had a choice Mom scoured every myth required every curandera crack eggs over my belly rub sagebrush across my forehead chant & pray One even told me to sing I could learn to love my antlers or I could wait see if they fell off on their own see how long would they stay gone
Plan B
He held my hand on the ride from El Centro from the Clinicas de Salud before the morning after
came in a little box like gum at corner drugstores for girls fifteen & older past the sugar beet plant its smell of dying
frogs like the ones we'd dissected in biology lab the formaldehyde on my fingers
for days the way lettuce smelled like slicing or tomatoes little hearts They formed a white
mountain the sugar hulls sweet climbing hill gated & locked beside alfalfa fields
The desert sky roiled its summer monsoon irrigation ditches hissing in the broil
I traced shapes in the fogged car window while he ordered drive-thru two carne asada burritos
& an extra-large Coke I loved him that much I loved him all the way up that fucking slope & drop
Billiards
It's Main Street I'm holding a black 8-ball
against the felt of my palm its heft could dent plaster I've shot
tequila off a baby changing table in a public restroom I'm
Metropolitan chic all tight pants & white scarves
blowing across my face as I strut to the tamale stand
toileting California's tank where I grew up girls pregnant in high school
or just after with or without the child's father our parents watching
our kids while we down gin & vodka in someone's backyard
my man is screwing someone else in the shed & I swore
I'd never find myself in this mess but only fear of looking foolish
& pride & the baby keep me from screaming
I'm not your pinche 1950s housewife cabrón
across my thigh I'm trying to remember
it's not her fault nor his We're all pawns in this game of bullshit
Is this how it is where you live
Quinceañera
1
My body he burned glue-gunning the papier-mâché of my breasts
to the smell of arts & crafts in the recreation room
like the cumbias of my girlhood dancefloors flailing like Pentecostal Sunday Nothing tasted so good
as the mango con chile from the fruit stand at the razor-edge of town not even the lime-
squeezed beer its smell of nigh-
out my window & Danny with his brother's truck wasn't the one who squashed
the June bugs spiraling from my navel my collarbones the peach-
fuzzed skin of my newly-shaped breasts
diving you survived anything)
2
on their thighs in the apricot-soft within their elbows photographs the judge ruled
circumstantial or unprovable the wife could not prove I'm wrecked for a system failing to protect what we love
When I say wrecked I mean the razorblade I stole when I was fifteen from the hardware store
pressed to my wrists like cat claws I told my mom were the neighbor's cat's
Mom she's wild she's untamable that fat tabby
unmothered things)
3
my ex-railyard familia barbacoa & soaking beans like I'm never drunk in the grass anymore wailing
like that alley tabby I've never stopped needing — she lies in bed
between my husband & me stomach pressed to sheets & waiting hollowed calavera
en Día de los Muertos marigolds laid on the altar of her belly button
though now she could be my ex's daughter at her Quinceañera in white like a mother in the news
who measured her daughter's growth through years pressed in a wedding dress from the time
she was a baby God she was too young
4
of my hips bone dry asparagus fields crackling heatwave where I'm still burying placenta fat as hearts
& beating back border roots with my fists
chance the doors will shut love in your face love —
escape) year I first learned to light myself on fire call the firetruck of my own
body that holiest of waters
Daughter Page Ripped from The Symbol Sourcebook
I smudge henna above our bed protect us from the evil eye rub it on our grassy
cow's forehead in the backyard Sally named me La Henna as a joke
for how my name sounded in Spanish like I was gringa until she realized my mama's Mexican too
but the apodo stuck like red rice burnt in the belly
My husband steams the carpets with Fabuloso purple cleanser Sally once bought from Dollar Store
picking me out dish towels & plastic table cloths for my all-alone apartment her son wouldn't leave
her house for mine he didn't love me enough
I'm terrified my daughter will turn gourd & fennel for a boy who'll believe she's no different
than the Maxim- or Showtime-bodied targets he calls women will hold her head down make her
swallow The springtime smell of Callery Pear blooms gorgeous white buds that make me gag
I spit on the sidewalk La Henna dripping bloodstone ghost of a girl who'll shove bezoars
down a daughter's throat to keep her from pulling worms from the stomach Sex is not a plague
my husband tells me spring cleaning our sheets flipping our mattress redbrick stains corral-
gates dripping rust relentless in a patch of spines darling girl I'm sorry the body resigns
Miracle of the River Pig
behold the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea & perished in the waters
* * *
Animals like women are cast in leading roles in plays of superstition One story if an observant countryman is right plots the alleged inability of a pig to swim Her sharp trotters swing so the story goes in circular motion in the water till she cuts her own throat This the countryman cheerfully claims did not happen to a sow who awaiting her litter & finding her sty flooded patiently swam round it unharmed until rescue arrived
* * *
My ex-mother-in-law served me pigs' feet on a plate her son my madness & I his evil porcine brewing in the sopa de pat slow-simmered pigs' feet soup
* * *
Years ago a young porker fell into an old bramble-covered well The water level was I don't know some 10 ft down the water deep It took us half an hour to borrow a ladder & come back She was still swimming round & round The well mouth too narrow for a man to go down that she-pig had her forelegs over one rung her snout under the rung above We raised that ladder slow The pig held on until she reached the top & we hefted her up She shook herself grunted & trotted off her throat unscratched & utterly unperturbed
* * *
The boy I met at the swine barns took me in the piss-yellow straw
Look there's the cemetery where I will not be buried Will my ex-fisher king be scattered at sea I will not join him nor be crowned his ex-fisher queen ex-voto ex-wife ex-plaything
* * *
Down the river did glide with wind & with tide A pig with vast celerity
& the devil looked wise as he saw how the while It cut its own throat
* * *
Another example of a swimming pig was witnessed in 1946 during the testing of the atom bomb on the Bikini atoll A total of 3,352
* * *
Mama sewed me into a wedding gown white as my communion when I was uneven in lacey socks & piggy tails
I followed again flint-grey up the river channel potbellied stones speckling the Río Nuevo
I was that unlucky bride in the river on the fence border trash a little piggy swimming
* * *
There was no sign of any kind that its throat had been cut In fact it was quite lively when being returned to its pen
Ignorance
Nights those Jesus bugs skimmed the creek's surface my bare feet glimmering like risen again I'd snuck
past date palms & horse corrals graveyard trilling beyond highway & the boys & their shining
bodies I'd brought my own carried it with me only newer sticky
summer air & white flies circling streetlamps what bliss was mine those moments before
glistening rocks before shivering water & wet with what could've loved me could've hovered me home
3-Card Spread What Is True What Isn't True Advice
I am safe I say to myself & pray for mercy
1 Trauma
Sponge cradled against wash bin & cracked
2 Lost Girl Broken In
Spilling like spoiled milk that halfway house I shimmied down drainpipe half-
3 The Wilting Field
The last time I had a dick in my mouth I was dying alfalfa withered in rows unable to separate desire from pain There are poets for whom this throbbing is healing My Frida rail-impaled my chingona fighting for whole even after gangrene She loved her body though it betrayed For some of us a dick in the mouth means a fist in the hair a knee in the ribs a spinal cord like a clump of pigweed carelessweed splintering the fingers bright blooms of blood on the skin Do you take your body wherever you go Does it follow Someday I'll find mine dancing in a field without me calling me to join
Daughter Lace Your Fingers to the Sky
Still you could not keep her from the dance our bodies dance
when we let the boys take us out to the country
& oh the moon may have been full
as lighted sky & sweetened earth silhouette backseats
Even through death masks we can kiss & skin pierces fabric
She let the girls in the stalls & the jeers in the halls & the slut
on the walls twine her neck bones string her atop a chair
but her dog didn't bark & no one knocked
& you mother found her swinging from the doorframe
1.0 out of 5 stars Not For Teennage [sic] Girls
Repeat NOT a book for teennage [sic] girls. Depressing and innuendos made about sex. Not the manner it's [sic] which I want my daughter to view sex and love.
Published 35 minutes ago by Amazon Customer It's not what sex & love are supposed to be like
Hallucination with Danny
He dredged mudbound a hole in the sky he fumbled down partway hitchhiked the rest from heaven he'd said perched at a bus stop on Lincoln & Montaño before sunrise He was beautiful he followed me home That was back when I was taken by every strange
What's Been Given Me Secondhand
He bought me a cherry-red dress no a black dress with cherries stemmed & shining as if bubbling atop grenadine & syrup with the insurance money he got
for his mama's dying I'd run out of clothes in that beachfront apartment where his drug friends were letting us crash we slept in a cupboard the length of his 6'4"
rope-coiled body folded like a robot into a box a cardboard home for what almost became of me for loving him too long for loving him at all
Why I always remember him in thrift shops busted lamps & scraggly rugs piled against walls knockoffs paraphernalia of longer legs longer days & how often
I miss that messed up man He bought a wedding band He lost it in the ocean I never asked him for anything but a razor I hadn't shaved in weeks
a bottle of shampoo I'd never tasted oysters & he said let them slide down your throat the ones we found in styrofoam outside the pier eatery but
he wouldn't let me near tinfoil again that white dust made him so mad coming down & every time I bled he understood what I was missing The motherless
recognize the childless He said we'd buried something in the sand Not a castle or a shovel or a bundle of cells that wouldn't stick that wouldn't grow nothing
so routine Once in a while in a Goodwill between faux fur & broken music boxes I find him hiding I'm high enough to believe it his windup his living again
Faithful Woman
Nobody understood her cruelty to herself one would have to chop off one's own hand to end the source of self-torture
Marilyn Chin
Tattooed in red clay his hand prints on my nalgas
while he eats chicharrones con chile
from his fingers I am his undesired bride
of fast times bringing big pots of albondigas to feed his whole
family love utterly
unasked for a belly filled with sticky red rice
& embryonic fluid nopales left to soak too long in salted water
at the edge of the valley sea brined sugar beets
dunes of sand
here is the truth I know
the wanting that aches wildly What do I know of the ancients
Mama your Jesus failed me Could he fly
could he wail could he scrub
the blood-stained trail
Common Carp
I lay in a bathtub of goldfish unlearning the ways the world loved me too tight or too narrow bright
as the orange spirals peeling belly button kneecaps earlobes I never learned to love back properly
not with my head screwed on my tailbone switching dangerously how anything shining has the capacity
for burning I used to worry the water electric dazzling all the neighborhood kids chanting glow glow glow as I rose
peculiar from the riverbed lucky as a well-wished copper penny sinking to a bottom mud like love Mermaid siren longing song Once I was glorious What pond what fish tank ever made me believe that was gone
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Girl with Death Mask"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Jennifer Givhan.
Excerpted by permission of Indiana University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
LifelineIThe Dying Girl & The Date PalmThe ChangePlan BBilliardsQuinceañeraDaughter Page Ripped from The Symbol SourcebookMiracle of the River PigIgnorance3-Card Spread What Is True What Isn't True AdviceDaughter Lace Your Fingers to the Sky1.0 out of 5 stars Not For Teennage [sic] Girls*Hallucination With DannyWhat's Been Given Me SecondhandFaithful WomanCommon CarpIIGirl with Death MaskSin Vergüenza (Como los Pájaros)Warn the Young OnesFirst ResponseSea LevelAvraFailure The Mother of ______PulseThe Rhinoceros CalfOn Contemplating Leaving My ChildrenMexican Wedding CookiesChassisThe Girl (Whose Mother Filled Her Belly with Meth & Let Terrible People Mutilate Her Body Before Killing Her) Runs AwayIIILa Llorona Comes Over for DinnerIVWhen I Am Not Joan of Arc or You Bring Me a Bowl of Green & Purple OlivesRefugio StateCandling The EggsBird Bath (Baño de Pájaros)RitualShameFuriosaThree Wolf SpiritsIn the Waiting Room of the Child PsychologistReabsorption ElegyGhost Girl in the Recovery RoomMythRetrogradeAt the Altar of StayingThis Bridge Called My BackWhat People are Saying About This
Magic, alchemy, transmogrification, and the body's deep obsessions fill these lyrically charged poems with an unearthed power. Givhan is a poet who knows the bones of her own world so well that she can rearrange them into anything she wishes. Both surreal and rooted in truth, the complex and gorgeous poems in Girl with Death Mask continue to shake, stun, and weave their spells long after the book is closed.
Magic, alchemy, transmogrification, and the body's deep obsessions fill these lyrically charged poems with an unearthed power. Givhan is a poet who knows the bones of her own world so well that she can rearrange them into anything she wishes. Both surreal and rooted in truth, the complex and gorgeous poems in Girl with Death Mask continue to shake, stun, and weave their spells long after the book is closed.
In the image-rich, circuitous journey of Girl with Death Mask, the girl both defies and weds death and its accomplice, sex, defies and weds collective mythologies. She flies and she falls, floats and drowns. . . In this raw, kinetic masterpiece of survival Givhan assures us, ‘even through death masks,’ Givhan assures us, ‘we can kiss.’
Girl with Death Mask shake the bars of our prisons and also those on which we write our music. . . . These poems illuminate how to love the body How hard our bodies work to bring their wisdom to us. How hard it is to love what we How hard it is to learn the ways that love abides despite our best efforts to dislodge, disprove, and doubt it. These poems find their way. They shake up our knowing in the best ways.
These poems beautifully, convincingly do what I hope poems might–they disrupt what I know, or what I thought I knew. And in that way they invent for me a world. A world haunted and brutal, yes. But one mended, too, by the love and tenderness and vision and magic by which these poems are made. Again and again I found myself looking into space, sort of shaken, sort of grasping, turning and turning inside a line or phrase, inside an image or metaphor, inside some devastating music.