Rachel Lehrman
REWIND
til we are all of us aliens, bald
with hungry eyes sent back
to oceans and raindrops
when real blood ran in our veins, the salmon
large and pulsing with life rushed the clean waters
(rewind)
til we are nothing
this souless heart smaller than a baby's hand
limp in my fingers, only this
small scraping
and what might have been
~
a bedsheet hangs on the curtain rail
screens light our faces in the dark
we are not alone:
this is the whale's belly full of plastic
the plane come down on the mountainside
the nameless
the horse strung up by its hind legs
spine severed
waiting for death
a picture taken with a phone
made public
still in last week's clothes
dishes piled on the windowsill
and all around me, things things things
things I don't know what to do with
~
people pull up nettles and greens and plant flowers
and I'm so hungry I could eat this broken plastic
but what would that make me?
sound builds:
abdomen, ribs, arterial walls
tongue to roof of mouth
gutteral then
as loud as we can:
keep going
the images change-
a small scrape of bone, a chemical peel
artificial light to colour the skin,
cut away that fat my dear
because this is what we make ourselves
(rewind)
tightlacing may shift the liver upwards
deep breath
a longer exhale, and pull
(rewind)
to make the child beautiful
break the bones before the foot is bound
(faster)
a decorative scar, two boards strapped to the infant's head
for cranial elongation,
(rewind)
naked now without shame
breasts sway, hair on arms
chests, the inside of legs
sweat
defecation
too many things have come to matter
~
hands black with elderberry
cup the side of your face
wood carvings
reflect in the lake
fallen trees as a house
I can't keep you here
(jump cut)
these are the children left to cry
alone in the dark
the ones we sent off to war
come back
parking spots a little closer to the mall for the maimed
an averted glance shhhhhh!
don't look away
here's the girl with a gun slung over her shoulder as she walks to a better life
a broken bag of sweets on the sidewalk in Cambodia
the half-naked children gather round
here's to the hungry, the one-armed, the short-lived, the hesitant, the boy locked in the closet
as his father bashes his mother's head against the wall again again again
don't look away
images posted on digital walls
a babe abandoned in the trash can
her child-mother the sold, the stolen, the taken away
'whoever wants to sell his slave I buy my brothers!'
the barefoot, the orphaned, the blind, the mentally unable
'one dollar'
believe what you want
~
there was a time when we only took what was needed
(rewind)
before planes, before guns, before
(rewind)
here
to be chosen by a god!
eye for an eye my friend
in the name of--
(rewind)
quartering
hanging
crucifixion
look at the marks on these bones
a delicacy, perhaps
(rewind)
layer upon layer
decomposition
sediment falls
until
(rewind)
the jaw a bit more prominent, an occipital bun
then, none of us know what we are
(rewind)
(rewind)
(rewind)
(rewind)
til we are cleansed
of this humanity
'whoever wants to sell his slave I buy my brothers!'
- www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-fighters-barter-over-yazidi-girls-on-slave-market-day--the-shocking-video-9836589.html
Copyright © Rachel Lehrman 2016
Rachel Lehrman is a poet, writer, artist and mother living in the idyllic UK village of Chorleywood. Her work has appeared in several magazines, including Molly Bloom 4. She published her first chapbook Second Waking with Oystercatcher Press in 2009. Her work is also featured in the anthologies Infinite Difference: Other Poetries by UK Women Poets (Shearsman 2010) and Sea Pie: A Shearsman Anthology of Oystercatcher Poetry (2012).