"the prometheus collage" & "The adoption room" by Mary Kasimor

the prometheus collage

w.here the rebels breed    in streets       painting over Graffiti

art towed left                  by the ocean      a /s.ucking daylight

as you think /wrongly                        insanity Bite.s your face

and you have Nothing to show          and nothing to tell

changing the                   god          into The d.og

the trapez.e artist who                            balances prometheus

the pain the Dissonance        of slaves   who /weep by the Wall

but you will fix things so that         .art            is free

you will heroic.ally               thump         your heart

making it begin                             in rhy.thm with the rest of us

sleeping with               microbes.                         and frogs

and menstrual Bloo.d that changes           the instinct

of your daughters            christened without     

doubt/   The Original                         si.n of the rich

The adoption room

                        the rapist sucked out            her brain

                                         the fine bones in her skull

never recovered

           did i ask you for a weapon

                          i lived on the edge in the adoption room

               virgins are born                 and never touched

don’t include me in your violent world

(my brain                        can’t imagine a rapist )

                   even as the brain

                              is connected to the vagina

                                          the babies are confetti

scattered            is the pain another biblical apparatus

                                                    of chastity belts

                      saints die              young wearing purple

                                saints regret their saintliness

and are anonymous

they want to be heard

                                     they want to even the bruise                                                                          your ego                 is against their bodies

                     they want to hate you

it doesn’t put violence on pause

                          in the brain’s cave        you hide out

           i distanced myself from              your utterances

                      the screams

                                          soaked below my blood

crimson was a direct descendent             of the trauma

              when you crawled into your bed

                                               and never came out

                             wasting your food in starvation

on television you are                            poised

                        a different life collects the words

                                                               into a careful attack

                     denying the experience                 of hysteria

                        after this you are carried around

by your poisoned body

__________________________

Mary Kasimor has been writing poetry for many years. Her recent poetry collections are The Landfill Dancers (BlazeVox Books 2014), Saint Pink (Moria Books 2015), and a chapbook, The Prometheus Collage (locofo chaps 2017). Her chapbook, The Nature Store, will be published this spring by Dancing Girl Press.