(For Célestine Nora-Lorraine, who has told me many stories and taught me many things.)
We live inside a monster. I don’t know her real name.
I call her Music Box Creature because I met her when
she was crying and she sang me the song of how
she was born a long time ago men with dark
masks shot arrows into a witch in the woods
and she died.
One arrow broke her leg open an angry snake
slithered out She swallowed all the men and arrows
She grew larger She ate all their horses and cattle
She became bigger than everything went into the sea
grew to dragon made fire smoke reaching up
past clouds until the king with his high crown
came to the sea with men carrying metal crosses
to kill her. It didn’t work but she had to hide.
He chased her back back down river to lake.
She went deep found an underground
cave to hide her, but somehow She is everywhere
around us now. Her eyes are outside in the garden.
Her vulva is the volcano you hiked in Hawai‘i. Her lungs
are wrapped around your throat, Mommy like a necklace
you wear forever. Sometimes she wants to take our eyes
and kill us but her heart is still beating in our
walls all the time. You can hear it if you’re very quiet.
Listen but be careful Mommy
her lymph nodes are spread through oceans and under
plates of land. If you press too hard or kick them
because you didn’t see or didn’t care it can make her
very sick for a long time Yes, she is still hiding
her mind and will in watery caverns deep beneath
her lake lined with red rocks yes She is getting
stronger every day but I don’t think she’ll be
very happy with anyone when She comes back
