Chapters (44)
- Cover
- Dedication
- I.
- Blueprint
- On Seeing and Being Seen
- Two Girls Bathing
- Marigolds of Fire
- Labor
- Poem After Betye Saar’s The Liberation of Aunt Jemima
- Diamondback
- After the __________, I yearned to be reckless. To smash
- Detail from “Poem After Betye Saar’s The Liberation of Aunt Jemima”
- Primordial Mirror
- Le Sacre du printemps
- After the __________, I had the urge to dance
- II.
- She Said
- III.
- Posing Nude
- Burying Seeds
- At the Fish House
- Why I Left the Garden
- After the __________, I mothered my mother,
- Facing Off
- After the __________, time turned like a mood ring.
- Resembling Flowers Resembling Weeds
- Of Being in Motion
- After the laughter subsided the crying kept after we held hands
- Heaven as Olympic Spa
- IV.
- Bluest Nude
- Bathers with a Turtle
- Slow Drag with Branches of Pine
- Lotioning My Mother’s Back
- Aubade
- A Family Woven Like Night through Trees
- Etymology of a Mood
- Poem After an Iteration of a Painting by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Destroyed by the Artist Herself
- Head on Ice #5
- After a Year of Forgetting
- There is a scar near my right eye no lover ever noticed
- Notes
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
She Said
Hello
Can you hear me
Can you hear me now
Hello
I can’t hear you
I’m sorry you’re breaking up
Is this better
Can you hear me now
Hello
Hello
Can you hear me now
Hello
*
And the said Agostino retorted that … [hole in page] and that he should find it, that otherwise he would have … [hole in page] for this ugly … [holes in page]
[[20. How long after it happened [did you tell]? Why didn’t you tell it immediately, and, if immediately, why didn’t you bring suit? Why have you said it now and what induced you to say it?]]
To the twentieth, she said
To the twenty-first, she said
To the twenty-second, she said
To the tenth one she answered as above
To the twelfth, she referred to the next one
And to the first [question] she answered
And while they were writing this down
To the third one she answered
To the thirteenth, she answered
To the eighth one she said
And the said summoned woman answered
*
FOOTNOTE 58: Hole in the page, one or two words missing.
FOOTNOTE 51: Hole in the page; three words missing.
I’m sorry you’re breaking—
She was asked
She answered
FOOTNOTE 68: The page is torn; two or three words are missing at the beginning of the line, and a line or more is cut off at the bottom of the page.
The said summoned woman retorting
Can you—
FOOTNOTE 63: See ms. 10.
*
And while the guard tightened the said cords with a running string, the said woman began to say
Then the judge, having heard [all this], etc., terminated the interrogation and ordered that the witness be sent back to her house for the time being.
*
When considering this poem, I know the “I” is missing. Twelve years ago, on one occasion, [ ] was robbed, assaulted, and almost raped by the same man, a stranger.
*
Is this better
Footnote 26: Literally, “lying in his throat” (mentirà per la gola).
How about now
The connection is bad
Sorry
Hold on
Hold on
Literally, “lying in his throat”
How about now
How
repeating the above words over and over, and then saying,
o
sorry
breaking
Hell
o
sorry
about
no
now
o
Hell
He
better
hear
breaking
break
better
be
breaking
this
can’t
me
*
the hear in hearing the ear the he the he in she the sh in shame the me the shh in me the ssshhhhh the y in saying the why the say the said the sad the sad i the scared i terrified she tried to say the test in testify the be in believed the lie the lived the silent i the why in silence the shh in she the she before the space before the space between she and said the ears in years the saying the said between
*
She added afterward voluntarily
She answered
She added afterward voluntarily
She added afterward
She added afterward voluntarily
She answered
She answered