Splinters Are Children of Wood Read online

  splinters are children of wood

  THE ERNEST SANDEEN PRIZE IN POETRY

  Editors

  Joyelle McSweeney, Orlando Menes

  2019

  Splinters Are Children of Wood, Leia Penina Wilson

  2017

  Among Ruins, Robert Gibb

  2015

  Underdays, Martin Ott

  2013

  The Yearning Feed, Manuel Paul López

  2011

  Dreamlife of a Philanthropist, Janet Kaplan

  2009

  Juan Luna’s Revolver, Louisa A. Igloria

  Editor

  John Matthias (1997–2007)

  2007

  The Curator of Silence, Jude Nutter

  2005

  Lives of the Sleepers, Ned Balbo

  2003

  Breeze, John Latta

  2001

  No Messages, Robert Hahn

  1999

  The Green Tuxedo, Janet Holmes

  1997

  True North, Stephanie Strickland

  splinters

  are

  children

  of

  wood

  LEIA PENINA WILSON

  University of Notre Dame Press

  Notre Dame, Indiana

  Copyright © 2019 by Leia Penina Wilson

  Published by the University of Notre Dame Press

  Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 USA

  undpress.nd.edu

  All Rights Reserved

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Wilson, Leia Penina, author.

  Title: Splinters are children of wood / Leia Penina Wilson.

  Description: Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press, [2019] | Series: Ernest Sandeen prize in poetry

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019023573 (print) | LCCN 2019023574 (ebook) | ISBN 9780268106171 (hardback ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9780268106188 (trade paperback ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9780268106201 (pdf ) | ISBN 9780268106195 (epub)

  Classification: LCC PS3623.I585483 A6 2019 (print) | LCC PS3623.I585483 (ebook) | DDC 811/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019023573

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019023574

  ∞This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992

  (Permanence of Paper).

  i do like

  how they burn

  look at them burn

  so many children

  look how they burn

  those childrenthat

  single hurt color

  i do disobedience

  to personor to poem

  undoing personand poem

  undeal all my feelings

  i offer you this ruined root—

  these pansies—who forfeit beauty for survival—

  i promise you can still eat them

  this gurl’s body

  second burial blue memory truetrue feeling deadfinally

  finally

  dead finally we feast

  i fill my own emptiness

  tie a ribbon to a tree

  leave coconut milk & honeythe white fleece of a young ram

  i borrow the best picked men

  pick from their bones the best picked women

  what’s a sentence anyway—prisons

  with prisoners’ castles

  fairytale i know

  fairytale i don’t

  making the labor of arranging words

  sacred—i say be

  be

  be

  be

  quick—throw tongues into the fire

  fill a bloodbowl

  offer enough wine

  —bathe in the fire—

  tell me are you grieving gurl

  r u

  r u grieving

  gurl

  r u

  grievinggurl

  yes— yes cunt

  yes cunt

  yes cunt

  we sing welcome first earth first mother first morning

  each red hibiscus reddens

  learning shapeshifting

  our bones don’t settle—who

  do i womb—ha!

  who do i woo—woe!

  tell me do you believe in resurrection

  braiding moon

  light into my long braidi do not

  flaunt my magici do not

  seek to dwellbeastish brutish

  banishedyet i do love

  —who misspells sacred missed a spell

  scared scarred

  scar redscathingcat thingcaredcarried

  for whose sakesake

  almost an acheraceacreher

  arean insistence of being

  reed read

  my spell does not miss—we carve

  on each other’s body rivers woodsvalleys every evening flower

  we carve i am

  i am

  i am

  meaning i am samoan

  i am afakasi

  i am warrior witch word

  we carve the world

  the gurl

  CONTENTS

  am i the world or the gurl

  i appear seeking revenge for the destruction of those children

  you must always feed from the bodies

  end notes & debts (of love)

  AM I THE WORLD OR THE GURL

  the world is always burning always burning the gurl always dies always dies am

  i the world or the gurl always burning always dying

  WE CRAVE THE WORLD THE GURL WE CARVE I

  bury a doll in the shape of myself

  i unlife themover and over

  againagain homer’s child

  plato’s childthose forms

  foregrounding another’s authority

  orpheus’ head floats off body

  off coursei give up

  understandingo mother

  receive this prayer—happy cannibalism!

  i too fear the heavensi shear

  a lock of my hairi unutter

  godi fall before you now

  a shield

  i dig her uptear her body apart

  get at the good meatredmeat

  marrowmeatheartmeatwomb

  i eat& unmourn

  my tongue

  hurts into itmanyheaded

  manypetaledmany

  mistakesmade to say

  epic is a wild thing.

  WE CARVE TENDERNESS

  she comes too near & feeds from the bodies

  into shapes is shaped now her

  christmas tree violence ginger man violence reindeer violence

  did you know reindeer could be violent all that merry

  snow everywhere snow that unwarm moisture the shyness

  start fluffing it this prison is very old and prisoning

  bee remover pigeon control pink wallpaper with horses and maids—

  o it’s rowdy so very rowdy

  & yet did you know me hands—

  i went the fork’d way you showed

  my mouthspat its gravel & yet

  when i killed my father i frightened

  youi had only models of ripping

  off your clothes & i couldn’t

  i will not be noisy when you want me to be still i will be glad—

  everything lays its corpse but i will not

  die i will not repent.

  WE CARVE WITHOUT NICETIES HISTORICAL ACCURACY

  each man’s end is all the cunt for himself.

  i lay an iris for each of us who in poverty walks behind eurydice.

  combat of beauty and pleasure. probably i won’t she says

  we were each other’s vicious education.we lear
ned so much

  we ruined.they built monuments to our broken

  bones said even our english was broke

  a shape of a monster a woman some mal formed skin over

  bones over skin over bones

  plenty of fatfatthe shape of make it out alive make it out alive.

  —do we ever

  don’t be that bitch just behead your lover that learning.

  there is a wraith in the birth trees watch out—

  i ask the prophet the seer who dreams for dreams too

  permit me death too.

  i cut my own throat close my own wound wear my own

  nightdescended blood.i will seek aide from my own

  enemies if there are friends here hide your eyes.

  WE CARVE FROM WHAT WE KNOW THE REAL LESSON BELIEVE

  nothing.sacrifice everything

  believe innothing

  be nothinghow

  did you get away with that for so long—we wish

  on a shooting starcombine our powersi do not

  want to be lonelyyour slick

  afterbirthfailed body of

  hectorprophetic womanheadhead of

  whatever you kill & carry around

  this killing your stilled-lifethis battle again

  again is tiresomeall these old white men

  and their same feelings—moon chalice! i want!

  to be stronghow will you answer lover! cunt! exile!

  the city some dreamydreamagain trapped

  an imagination limited by that imaginationi miss

  somehow now weighted againstsatisfaction

  o grim mouthgrim reaper—just watch me

  step into the sea out

  of (your) reachagain you think yourself a great original

  to have pleased me (once)—what

  words will move me

  what desire cuts throat to naveli cut it out

  i regret only the intimacy—in the thralls

  of the jaws of another afternoon

  we demand the other’s red—another transformation

  rainbow double moon heartache! or

  what dream what maiden what full name

  did they stitch you up in

  angry dead animal skin

  to mirror your angry dead animal soul

  rage yetrecognition

  WE CARVE CARVE CARVE

  i am i am i am

  each man’s end

  an end

  and

  &

  WE CARVE THE ONE WE KNOW

  i lay my hand in the wolf ’s mouth

  the wolf knows it will lose its freedom i will lose my hand

  we stare at each other like lovers like we don’t need freedom or hands

  like the sea hasn’t risen to welcome us backlike we haven’t lost her

  it’s always a her my island body recoilsas they try to rename me

  every mispronounced syllable a papercutso many papercuts

  i die i try to imagine it hurts less this timemy imagination falters

  dropping to one knee i leave blood wonder when it will be used against me

  the sea that encloses heryoung body is the sea of many

  arms i can’t flick what’s leftover out

  i just rub it in stain it good what fragrance

  is this my favorite smellthe blazing secrecy of noon

  once more undone it’s all pasted underneath my fingernails

  underneath the sea where it is dark & muddy & i am blind

  underneath the sea where it is dark there is no edge so

  sleep my sistersleep

  WE CARVE THE ONE YOU KNOW

  they feed me this new violencemadonnaun

  updated whore—

  they make me into a real rat & marvel

  my loss of fear

  sibyl or unreliable narrator—my abstract

  says something about early 20th century modernism

  i don’t feel moderni do feel a machine

  they braid purple flowers into my hair & wonder

  at its longits softness

  they smell it—more lavender more lavender

  you will never hear it againthey say the closeness

  of the earth the skyyou will never

  see it againthey say those autumn oak leaves

  lose the softness of your sexherelet me soften you

  with sexthey do

  i can’t write this poemi hate them

  is this my epicwanting all white

  men deadreally all men

  isn’t desire weirdthat it expresses

  the entire spectrum of human emotion gets me

  i think i’m tiredof poetry (is that okay to say)

  what am i in possession of really

  helen as she desires becomes capable antigone

  muscles reacting that time i ate only bread

  and milk the beautiful or the terrifying that

  iciclewhat am i having neither launched 1,000 ships

  nor thrown ashes into the air

  nor grieved in those ways

  WE CARVE BECAUSE WE MUST

  there must be different words why else insist—let me

  let me learn warlet me learn gathering

  one flower two flower three flowerspring flower

  unmediated yellow—know me!sprung

  from clouds—calm afternoon clouds

  don’t you see the winds love me! (frenetic laughter)

  don’t you see the soil loves me! (a small quake)

  they hate youdon’t you see even the dumb birds hate you

  i can tell you don’t see.

  i will not award you

  for trying to save me from death for dying too

  that’s so stupidlet me ask you

  what would you learnfully armored

  unblushed—spear& arrow& (shoulder shrug) guile

  yet to take new bloodbefore someone kills someone kills someone

  what would you learnlet melet me learn more than survival

  let me learnthat survival

  is everything said

  in a great voice

  wait!

  is that it really

  really

  fuck

  i am fucked.

  WE CARVE

  the middle

  we eat this journeyit’s about

  consuming againlifei came

  to myself within a dark wood

  here the direct waylost—

  could i not possess a city

  with my own hands

  with my own desire

  do i lack everything—

  the red sun rises

  & i saw you

  myself.

  WE CARVE WITH RESPECT THE GURL PRAYING

  nafanua! ferocious warrior! samoan mother!

  thank you for teaching me my power

  alofa! alofa! alofa!yet i am called away

  i don’t want to goglittering glittering

  athena!this againi honor your maternal sinews

  every corpse in its placeundreamt melancholyunhealed

  will you let me return

  somedayto those volcanic waters

  one coin in one eye

  mouth filled with holy dirtthe harvest moon

  makes wine of our bloodi drink

  the spittle of some birdoffend

  the magnificent cow—o

  magnificent cow so often i offend!

  o comrades! spread your netsin these woods

  i renounce my doubts

  holy holy holy—i will not

  runo bright conflict i do want your body

  the dealshe is minei save heri am

  an eelimagining myself a rhinoceros

  a wild horse—

  a sound soundingbronzehoofed

  gold mane golden thighs golden cunt

  don’t speak to me

  of facts—i am a beara godly bearthe world looks at me

  i allowhow vicious devotion

  among jackalsthat red
>
  gold hungeri consider all the words i know

  unprove them

  a pack of hunting dogs approach

  i stand

  open-armed—

  WE CRAVE

  what is itthey saythe extent of women’s eru

  dition should consist of only simple letters

  today she saysi learnto cut with my cunt

  i learn to cut

  with my cunti learn to

  cut with my cunti learn to

  cut with my cunti learn to cut with my cu

  nt i learn to cut with my cunt i learn to

  cut with my cunttoday i learn to

  cut with my cunttoday i learn to

  cut with my cunttoday i learn to cut with my cunt today

  i learn to

  cut with my cunttoday i learn to

  cut with my cunttoday i learn to

  cut with my cunttoday i learn to

  cut with my cunttoday i learn to

  cut with my cuntcut

  with my cunt cut with my cunt cut with my cunt

  cut with my cunt cut with my cunt

  cut with my cunt

  to cut with my cunt to cut with my cunt

  to cut with my cunt to cut with my cunt

  to cut with my cunt to cut with my cunt

  to cut with my cunt to cut with my

  cunt to cut with my cunt to cut with my

  cunt to cut with my cunt to cut with my

  cunt to cut with my cunt

  to cut with my cunt cut with my cunt

  cut with my cunttoday i learn to

  cut with my cunttoday i learn to

  cut with my cunt today i learn to cut with my cunt

  today i learn to cut with my

  my cunt to cut with my cunt today i learn to

  cut with my cunt cut with my cunt cut with my cunt

  cut with my cunt

  today i learn to cut with my cunt