Poetry Suite by M.F. McAuliffe
“stand my body on a rock,
nail my hands to the wheeling stars”
Poetry by M.F. McAuliffe
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Crucifix I
If you want a forest you're going to have to pull it out of my feet,
out of my skin, out of the veins jumping with exhaustion,
out of the hollows of my bones (the chalkiness of them frightening):
you're going to have to stand my body on a rock,
nail my hands to the wheeling stars (let my tendons turn and twist and knot)
let the wind and standing dark
solidify for centuries;
unzip the glueskin around my fingernails,
dangle it sidewise in the sun,
nick and pluck and pull
my chest, back, neck, arms, thighs;
bundle the glimmering collection of ribs that hang now dry as rattles,
score them lengthwise,
bury them parallel and parallel and parallel;
lie me on the earth,
go back in with twelve-inch needle-nose pliers
cast aside the spleen and liver and calcified mush,
go straight to the cracked black stone of my heart:
re-water and restore it,
warm it with your lips,
hope it still contains the soft, complex stemcell of the world.
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Crucifix II
Rip the belly from side to side
let the entrails spill out,
the ovaries gleam in a river of blood
die of air
Incise
upward to the heart,
flick it, also, out onto the ground,
let it palpitate, come to rest,
dogmeat, kangaroo meat, goatmeat
Pierce on upward into the brain
with the stiletto, knitting-needle, tool,
up through the pineal
into the joining of thought
Liberate the soul
Sever shame from shame
the hollow between the last ribs on the right
from the wound between the last ribs on the left,
the throbbing fingertips
from the thundering under the skull
Carve down from the armpits
scoring the bone;
score the legs also, let them fall open,
the meathook from the sky
loop through the crotch
Hoist and haul,
let the thing drain,
Let the occurrence become transparent
as though it had never been.
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Crucifix III
Oh haul out the fantasy of love
the open lips the small ripe round yielding breast
and direct it at me:
Send me eyes and tongue
to lip and tongue
the valley of ghosts at my neck
the sagging sacs of unborn putti further down:
Send me the fantasy of regard and cherishing
the wrinkled satin plumping under the hand
pillowing downwards to the smallest eye:
Send me the final fantasy of adoration
mouths open with praise and softness
the touch like veined silver in the skin
oh cover me with mouths
while the white afternoon takes me
apart
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Header Image courtesy of artist Tamara Muller. To view a gallery of her paintings on NAILED, go here.
M. F. McAuliffe was born under a different sun. Apart from that, she is co-author of the poetry collection Fighting Monsters, and of the limited-edition artist's book Golems Waiting Redux. In 2002 she co-founded the Portland-based, multilingual magazine Gobshite Quarterly with R. V. Branham; in 2008 she co-founded GobQ Books. She continues at both imprints as commissioning / contributing editor.