| Chapter 5: | The Subtle Marks of Vulnerability |
|
|
This is a limited free preview of this book. Please buy full access.
perceive, to tolerate the vulnerable in myself and in its existence in the world and earth. I learn to keep my senses open to what I am not seeing. My method is compassion.21
Enter a building. Its floors are made of wooden planks and the walls are thick stone. The windows are narrow and the light is artificial. The corridor is long and there are wide thresholds leading to closed doors. There is always someone out of sight, evaluating, judging. There is someone with all the information.
A woman lives within the walls of a room.
In your unwaking trance she finds me, tends to me,
Bathes my eyes, wraps them gently in cotton.
I project dulled dreams through light onto crumbling walls.
Woman writes itself
Through hands at the ends of arms
On the margins of dys-body. The word woman
Writes itself right here, right now
So I can write what I cannot see.
I am writing the word woman when she
Fiercely penetrates my skin.
In your unwaking trance she finds me, tends to me,
Bathes my eyes, wraps them gently in cotton.
I project dulled dreams through light onto crumbling walls.
Woman writes itself
Through hands at the ends of arms
On the margins of dys-body. The word woman
Writes itself right here, right now
So I can write what I cannot see.
I am writing the word woman when she
Fiercely penetrates my skin.
She lives, sees what we disregard.
Holds out her hand.
You take it, cool and calloused to the touch.
Holds out her hand.
You take it, cool and calloused to the touch.
Closing my hand within her grip she draws me close.
I lay your hand upon her breast, pass it over flanks.
Her hand touches your forehead, moves toward your eyes.
It happens so fast I must lie about what happens next.
I lay your hand upon her breast, pass it over flanks.
Her hand touches your forehead, moves toward your eyes.
It happens so fast I must lie about what happens next.
She hands me a knife, lies beside me on her bed.
Skin to skin she guides our hands.
Incise, cut through epidermis, dermis, subdermis through fascia,
nerve, and muscle.
Refuse from the cracks is stuffed close to bone.
In the dark you suture each layer of her wound.
Skin to skin she guides our hands.
Incise, cut through epidermis, dermis, subdermis through fascia,
nerve, and muscle.
Refuse from the cracks is stuffed close to bone.
In the dark you suture each layer of her wound.
She must be mad to live this way.
Prostrate, crawling low to the ground.
Prostrate, crawling low to the ground.