Phoebe Rodriguez

Instructions to Male Poets

Don’t call me the earth.
Don’t make my flesh a typography of fertile hills.
Don’t talk of my flowering and my buds.
Don’t speak of the garden of my thighs
or the fruit therein, its sweet juice and delicate skin.
Don’t mention what I produce.
Don’t name me Gaia or Ceres with her sheaf of grain.

Don’t call me a dove.
Don’t study the arc of my neck like a peacock’s.
My hollow bones, my glossy feathers,
my harpy talons, my siren song.
Even the owl of Athena disgusts me.
Hunted, caged, or freely soaring, don’t paint me a bird.

Don’t call me the sea or the storm,
or the ship that braves it.
The Sun, Moon, or Stars.
Wisdom, Justice, Liberty, Victory.
Your poetic Muse.
And when your empire fractures,
don’t name me Mary or curse me Eve.

Blur each letter of the name, blunt the metaphor.
Blast away the meaning til the word has no use,
burn away the graven image’s form and face,
unbind me to be

a cold, vast, inscrutable universe,
an unsexed eternity.

Bruise

My broken knuckles have bruised
more times than I have bones to count them.
My bones have broken bones, my skin has scraped skin.
I am never in my best form, except when I swing.
Even playground fists, sand under the nails,
knew how to scratch, peel, bruise.

The morning I was born, or the mourning my parents brought me.
The chemical imbalances, the chemicals I imbibe to mute them.
The sulfur of the chapel, the gasoline of the pasture.
The tannins and formaldehyde, the antibiotic ointment.
These, maybe, are the mysteries of why I bruise so well.

I breathe a prayer to the nonexistent,
forgiveness. Mine. Yours. It must work,
for this is what we invented gods for.
We lever the weight off our chests, build from blighted ribs
an altar, a Babel. Draw a meaning in the blood drawn,
which is, in the end, a fraction of your weight.

We blunt teeth, we blacken eyes, we blind and bind
and bind again what we have made, and what we haven’t.
We crack, we cut, we shear, we shatter.
We crawl into another bed for succor,
wrapping arms, entwining knuckles.

Not one of us many-mottled bodies deserves the others.

Originally from California, Phoebe Rodriguez (she/they) now calls the Twin Cities home. They received a B.F.A. in Theatre from Viterbo University and work as a wardrobe technician. Their poetry and prose have been featured in Sunbow Zine, Messy Misfits Club, 30 North Literary, and elsewhere. Their debut poetry chapbook, Fatherland, Motherland, is available for pre-order from kith books. Find Phoebe at Twitter or at their website.