Get up. Tell it.
up from the dark faces swim puckered thread I’m jammed
& can’t unstick bodied again a self
in stark relief against the universe a creature of want
& need it hurts to be
an I
Tell it straight. Quit trying to make it pretty.
fine I died I left I went somewhere else
Where did you go?
an elsewhere an absence an abscess
does it matter what I call it
it was quiet there it stripped me to the bone
I had no words I had no meat
Tell it from the beginning.
no such thing
Try.
my mother says when I was born
I whispered my name in her ear
speech broke through bloodied my gums
Who killed you?
a man a man like any other do the dead care
You aren’t dead. Not anymore.
I still speak their tongue
Do you forgive him?
I lack that muscle
Did it hurt?
you always ask that do you think death a picnic
of course it hurt
Dying?
yes but coming back was worse
my maiden’s head stitched to a mangled neck
a well sprung from
my blood I could hear it hum
in time with my heart
my viscera missed me
Why did he kill you?
oh he could never bear any beauty
he couldn’t keep I planned to marry God
to gift myself a life unfettered (the divine
a rather absent lord&master)
when I would not open for him he opened
me made a door my mouth dripped
curses
What happened then?
the earth ate him whole I’m told
they prayed me back to life that I woke like a princess
lithe & unruffled birds in my hair
And now?
the spring where I fell runs red smells of incense and decay
wounds I touch
knit shut I pull the dead
from the grave tell them get up get up
draw speech from their tongues I teach them to live
again to carry death with them
like pilgrims to tell the story to anyone
who asks
What happens when you tell it?
I live & live & live again
Caroline Shea is the author of Lambflesh. Her work has appeared in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Narrative Magazine, and Rogue Agent, among other publications. You can be in touch and read more of her writing at https://caroline-fitzgerald-shea.squarespace.com/.