Ophelia Drowning
Originally published in Artemis Journal
“Lay her i' th' earth, and from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring!”
– Laertes, Hamlet, Act V Scene 1
I lay in the dirt
as unseen thumbs at my temples
press my head against the ground. I want to open my lips
in prayer but fear I will swallow the earth.
I am dust and dirt and soil and alive – I think. Alive
but still. I am dust and dirt and soil and violets grow
in my hands, taking root in my flesh.
The stem pushes through skin and splinters my bones, until petals open
like the stigmata. I am holy now – I know this without prayer.
What need have I for prayer when my body gives life
to something once dead? I am the one for whom the world
has waited. Black habit nuns pick flowers
from my palms and feet. I am the holy host, my body
theirs to break and eat. They consume the dust and dirt
and flowers, the trace of life departed
and arrived. But I fear suffocation under their greedy hands.
I tear myself free. I uproot violets from the earth
and roll down the riverbank. I am baptized in mud. The water is warm –
I swallow the earth.
– Laertes, Hamlet, Act V Scene 1
I lay in the dirt
as unseen thumbs at my temples
press my head against the ground. I want to open my lips
in prayer but fear I will swallow the earth.
I am dust and dirt and soil and alive – I think. Alive
but still. I am dust and dirt and soil and violets grow
in my hands, taking root in my flesh.
The stem pushes through skin and splinters my bones, until petals open
like the stigmata. I am holy now – I know this without prayer.
What need have I for prayer when my body gives life
to something once dead? I am the one for whom the world
has waited. Black habit nuns pick flowers
from my palms and feet. I am the holy host, my body
theirs to break and eat. They consume the dust and dirt
and flowers, the trace of life departed
and arrived. But I fear suffocation under their greedy hands.
I tear myself free. I uproot violets from the earth
and roll down the riverbank. I am baptized in mud. The water is warm –
I swallow the earth.
Tattoos for Grief Memory
(After Ocean Vuong’s “Anaphora as Coping Mechanism”)
Originally published in Artemis Journal
I fear forgetting.
I take out my pen, draw
the first outline. Despite four years passed I still wander
through grieving memories. If only this ink were permanent,
your life a new garden. You could live on my skin.
If only you wake after weeks of wires plugged into lungs
in the ICU. But you don’t. You don’t wake to see your room:
the hydrangeas covering your scent of dying, your fingernails
turning blue like petals. I watch as your body slows to stop
and countless tubes release your chest. I wake from dreams
where I smell the flowers, remember your rasping voice.
My hand sketches the hydrangea. Your unconscious time in Eden.
I wake with the desire to draw, to take this ink and carve it
into my skin. Make my body a garden growing
up through eternity. All I want is to cover myself in hydrangea,
watch the pink turn to your blue. I wake as the season returns
like an inked memory sealed on a fragile body. I wake with decision
on my lips. Ready for the needle’s point, I say Please.
The needle breaks my skin like soil. Plants root as I cry,
grateful for the sharp, piercing promise. I wait as ink spreads slowly,
and petals open and my skin blossoms. Look how each step ambles
like flowers breezing in the heat of May.
I’m still in mourning. I’m still scared
of forgetting you someday. You might have forgotten me
wherever you ended up. My skin contains the very remnants
remembering your hands and your unspoken Goodbye--
your life a new garden.
I take out my pen, draw
the first outline. Despite four years passed I still wander
through grieving memories. If only this ink were permanent,
your life a new garden. You could live on my skin.
If only you wake after weeks of wires plugged into lungs
in the ICU. But you don’t. You don’t wake to see your room:
the hydrangeas covering your scent of dying, your fingernails
turning blue like petals. I watch as your body slows to stop
and countless tubes release your chest. I wake from dreams
where I smell the flowers, remember your rasping voice.
My hand sketches the hydrangea. Your unconscious time in Eden.
I wake with the desire to draw, to take this ink and carve it
into my skin. Make my body a garden growing
up through eternity. All I want is to cover myself in hydrangea,
watch the pink turn to your blue. I wake as the season returns
like an inked memory sealed on a fragile body. I wake with decision
on my lips. Ready for the needle’s point, I say Please.
The needle breaks my skin like soil. Plants root as I cry,
grateful for the sharp, piercing promise. I wait as ink spreads slowly,
and petals open and my skin blossoms. Look how each step ambles
like flowers breezing in the heat of May.
I’m still in mourning. I’m still scared
of forgetting you someday. You might have forgotten me
wherever you ended up. My skin contains the very remnants
remembering your hands and your unspoken Goodbye--
your life a new garden.