WHO BEGAT THE EARTH?
Who begat the earth? I did.
I grew it three times in my belly.
That isn’t true. It is.
It’s a metaphor. I made three lives.
Who begat the earth? Not me.
None of this is my fault.
Who begat the hours that squeeze out like a paste?
God. What does he look like? Nobody knows.
He lives in a city. Nobody knows how to get there anymore.
Who begat the bean vine growing like a slow thought around the trellis?
The earth. We inherited it, a palace a mansion a city a forest a ship of treasures we’re sinking inside.
EMILY BLUDWORTH DE BARRIOS is the author of Splendor, a book of poems. She’s also published two chapbooks: Women, Money, Children, Ghosts, from Sixth Finch, and Extraordinary Power, from Factory Hollow Press. Her poems have appeared in publications such as jubilat, The Harvard Review, and The Poetry Review. Born in Houston and raised in Egypt, the United States, and Venezuela, she currently lives with her husband and three children in Houston. Her website is www.emilybludworthdebarrios.com.
Read more by Emily Bludworth de Barrios:
Read all Emily Bludworth de Barrios’ poems in B O D Y
Poem in Sixth Finch
Poem in Tender
Poem in the Harvard Review
The man keeps telling me I’m beautiful. /
I still look young. //
He says it like I’ve asked for it, /
but I don’t care. //
For him or beauty.
Vagina neck. Twat gullet. /
Neck with brain wrinkles /
that yank me...
One had a ketchup bottle, the other a bottle of mustard, and they were holding them, crotch-level, squirting long streaks of ketchup and mustard on the floor, while we clapped in unison.
Here is the image of a wife
in a thatched smokehouse––
she sleepwalks from fire
to fire, setting start again.
Afraid / to ask, I wonder if Joko was tested. / I don’t want to put him on the spot / and I know I’d think less of him / if he gave the wrong answer.
slut, thug, doper, bitch, her voice never rising above a whisper. These words may make you uncomfortable.
The woman carrying her life, /
who passed by a moment ago, calls out /
from the next street and someone answers, /
but not to her.
She’s never invited me to one of her parties. / Well, she invited me once. // Once I got there, she never talked to me. /
Never offered me a glass of wine. // Her brain must be a crowded / little place telling her, You’re terrific!
They had more interesting curses than ‘fuck’. /
They loved the views that they made for the future, /
for the people who were lucky enough /
to be born after them.
perjury of lightning bolts: /
a fish spine rises from the trenches of the wound-up day, /
disrupting darkness
