j’aime le souvenir…
adapted from Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire.
I love the memory of our history,
like a sculpture of apollo in bronze,
when we knew the steps and
shirked all the forms, we
didn’t always think quite so much
as we do now, when each morning rises red
and our pieces still fit each with the other,
but we can’t keep up with the weeds
in all these fields that we’ve laid down
and we tried to hunt the wolves, howling
but each snare caught us, too,
each shot fired in self-defense
took a piece of us along that trajectory
a fortress built on sand, lost to erosion
truth is a native honesty,
it is a nakedness we hide with clothing,
with practice, with dreams and lies
and spend the rest of our lives
trying to peel back the layers,
to rediscover what we hid away from the world
we are taught to name all our imperfections
but not how to accept them.
the twin gods of usefulness and desirability
seeking our tribute, succor, attention, teaching
how to look like you have or have not,
how to nourish and how to starve,
how to be a child in the world,
then how to bear one.
we carry it all, pious pussy, cunt of corruption
even as we carry the human burden of shame
the heart muscles and white matter
eaten alive by greed, by entitlement,
all these inventions of men who fucked their muses
then donned their laureates and stoles before morning,
no offer of thanks or credit to undo her lost sincerity,
holy and simple as running water,
her current clear and cold and abiding
threading around rocks and plunging over cliffs
oracles staring at reflecting pools, witness and vessel
for these men who forget they are half woman,
the sum of so much water.
Monica Deck is an archer, author, and MFA candidate. Her work currently focuses on poetry and creative nonfiction. She lives in the midwest with cats, her partner, and her kid.
