rel="nofollow" href="#litres_trial_promo">My Mother, the Monsoon
Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in their Arms the Skins of an Orchestra—Dalí, 1936
Simplify the Universe with a Pie Chart
Dora Incites the Sea-Scribbler to Lament
‘La Madre wants not to be in the sea—’
You taught me a new way of singing—
About the author and this book
The Ladies? I enquire gingerly, my first try, not remembering the more neutral word. But we are in the desert, a roadside café shack off the Panamericano. Out the back, someone motions. A wooden door whips open, caught by the wind, slams fast. Vast sands to left and right, nothing else—oh, but Mind the Dogs! someone calls.
Listen, O daughter, give ear to my words:
forget your own people and your father’s house.
– Psalm 44 (45)
Whistle, chica.
Whisht. Give your ear
close and flutter. And flutter.
Eat in all you can hear.
Grow rotund on it, fit
as a fiddler’s wife’s
cat. There are other kinds
of right learning. Cause
you know. Cause you hear.
Bilge goes out with the suds.
A chain of Cheyennes
touches the lodge of
an enemy. You explode
flat on the floor. Fat
on fear. Flayed
with sharp, and hot, and not.
The ritual of dressing: vest yourself
with shirt of hare, to keep you fleet
of heart, not bound to anyone.
Next, scapular, dyed marigold
to shun the sun; fuddle enemies
with poison-light. Belt of peacock
feathers, brilliant-eyed and trailing
emerald, to fetch a glance
around the forest; have folk staring
after. Dun stockings tricked out
with dog-rose and forget-me-not.
Clogs of cherrywood, carved, ideally,
by a first and lonely love. Eucalyptus
gloves to make your hands more apt
to heal and tease, caress,
