Cubits
or
力
from my strong planks they made
dimensions of ache strain yore called
me this bitch, this barn, this barn
-storming woman rained on their shining
shoes, their seven sons, their sheaves of wheat,
their rose bowls, & i filled and filled
with a power unknown to man
not that power to take to yield to give to give
birth but contain, contain, bleed. all these eternities shored
up inside me womb dreaming
animals heart racing
against the man who hammered & sawed & kept & used
his power not to break new rice fields but to warp
wood to his monotheist monoethnic monolingual mono
-tonous desires: then he smeared me with his bitter
compound, filled me with neuroses zoonoses
psychoses & when it didn’t plague
me he gave me a man
’s name, only with an A to signify my sex
-less androgynous asexual apathetic acrimony
& when his nail slipped inside me
i took on no water; i declared i am not your vessel &
after, they told me
at least he gave you a name—in this world women normal
-ly do not receive names that’s why
there is a Lot, there is a lot
of ’s wife, there is a Viola, there is a viola
-tion, there is 力in the rice fields of 男
there is wood & there is temperance,
& there is too much wood,
& there is not enough temperance
& that is why i carry marks at mizzenmast
why this manmade vessel kept its nose down
did not sink in the assault
likens to a girl, that is why (& not why) i have been
tempered seasoned scarred un
-sunk
dimensions of ache strain yore called
me this bitch, this barn, this barn
-storming woman rained on their shining
shoes, their seven sons, their sheaves of wheat,
their rose bowls, & i filled and filled
with a power unknown to man
not that power to take to yield to give to give
birth but contain, contain, bleed. all these eternities shored
up inside me womb dreaming
animals heart racing
against the man who hammered & sawed & kept & used
his power not to break new rice fields but to warp
wood to his monotheist monoethnic monolingual mono
-tonous desires: then he smeared me with his bitter
compound, filled me with neuroses zoonoses
psychoses & when it didn’t plague
me he gave me a man
’s name, only with an A to signify my sex
-less androgynous asexual apathetic acrimony
& when his nail slipped inside me
i took on no water; i declared i am not your vessel &
after, they told me
at least he gave you a name—in this world women normal
-ly do not receive names that’s why
there is a Lot, there is a lot
of ’s wife, there is a Viola, there is a viola
-tion, there is 力in the rice fields of 男
there is wood & there is temperance,
& there is too much wood,
& there is not enough temperance
& that is why i carry marks at mizzenmast
why this manmade vessel kept its nose down
did not sink in the assault
likens to a girl, that is why (& not why) i have been
tempered seasoned scarred un
-sunk
Maria S. Picone is a Korean adoptee whose work explores identity and social justice. She has been published in Ice Floe Press, Moonchild Magazine, and Whale Road Review. A HUES Scholar VONA alum, and Watering Hole Fellow, she won Cream City Review’s 2020 Summer Poetry Prize. She will be in Best Small Fictions '21. Twitter: @mspicone.
Art: Public Domain