BY A. MARTINE
grapevine gossip
from time to time i look up a man i almost
dated to test my intuition’s mettle
the addendums i append to my search
varying only in their extremity
firstlast + jail
+ serial killer
+ murder
can’t help but probe, set stiff set stiff
for the soft spot in my duodenum where
my foresight rests, and try to prove
it wrong, and my other senses too
that my bloodhound ears didn’t register
what they think they registered while he
was threading me metal spools of sparkling
ovations, so sharp they gashed when handled
all that talk of redemption, all that
tell me what scares you, for i am scared too
trifectas the two-pronged truth, my beast
recognizes in him a wholly deeper beast
softspot screams the very first song i, newborn
woman, heard offered me: runrunrun for the hills
can’t help but silence it, set stiff set stiff
or maybe it’s admission to that club i’m
rescinding, the one that standardizes
ambidextrous horror — we’ve all dated a creep —
until it, too, internalized, feels like a dinky
pinch, duodenum subdued to ruination
from time to time i google a man i almost dated
and am stunned to learn he hasn’t killed anyone
yet
and though i am momentarily comforted, assurance in
others’ inner workings set stiff set stiff
my softspot-foresight promises, wasn't all in your head, you just wait, you just wait.
Hecate's Wheel
Convinced it tasted of soot and salt,
time and again I tried to bite off
the ink-blot stain on my tongue,
responsible, surely, for tinging
everything I drank with its essence.
That is, until I understood. In Senegal:
we inkblot tongues are soothsayers.
Anything we say comes supposably true,
contrapasso dispelled indiscriminately.
Should a wordsmith like me be thirsting for
that kind of omnipotence? I hope
to be one of the good, really good ones;
but buzzing bees in my elastic throat, I
know I go both way with words, have
only mouthfuls of cursepells to offer.
To blazes with intent: I thought I wanted love
to feel like something belonged to me.
Why did I say: i know when my flaming
lifeblood hits the floor and bursts
outward like ember petals, I’ll be
incandescent, the epicenter of disaster,
too fierce for love, too good for love.
When said love deserted me, I spent a violent
year supine on the coal floor beseeching
Take it back, I take it back I take it back.
I think I am one of the good, really good souls,
but it never occurs to me to say good, and to
wish for good. I cannot plagiarize what I’ve
never known. At the suggestion of pandemonium,
my inkblot tongue comes alive.
I could kill this liar with a prayer.
Even when my malice maimed the cruelest
boy I knew, omnipotence like the
resounding crack of a whip—
Again!
Again!
I was Doubting Thomas, if he were a woman who’d been
taught and taught to disbelieve. A maelstrom
thrashed in my palms, and I still underestimated
how fearsome, how formidable
I could be.
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A. Martine is a trilingual writer, musician and artist of color who goes where the waves take her. She might have been a kraken in a past life. She's an Assistant Editor at Reckoning Press and a co-Editor-in-Chief and Producer of The Nasiona. Her collection AT SEA was shortlisted for the 2019 Kingdoms in the Wild Poetry Prize. Some words found or forthcoming in: Déraciné, The Rumpus, Moonchild Magazine, Marias at Sampaguitas, Bright Wall/Dark Room, Pussy Magic, South Broadway Ghost Society, Gone Lawn, Boston Accent Lit, Anti-Heroin Chic, Figure 1, Tenderness Lit. @Maelllstrom/www.amartine.com. is a trilingual writer, musician and artist of color who goes where the waves take her. She might have been a kraken in a past life. She's an Assistant Editor at Reckoning Press and a co-Editor-in-Chief and Producer of The Nasiona. Her collection AT SEA was shortlisted for the 2019 Kingdoms in the Wild Poetry Prize. Some words found or forthcoming in: Déraciné, The Rumpus, Moonchild Magazine, Marias at Sampaguitas, Bright Wall/Dark Room, Pussy Magic, South Broadway Ghost Society, Gone Lawn, Boston Accent Lit, Anti-Heroin Chic, Figure 1, Tenderness Lit. @Maelllstrom/www.amartine.com.