Tags
Ann Arbor, art keeps us in hell, bookstore, Frida Kahlo, honey slur, poem, Poetry, Shaman's Drum, sonnet, without consent
“I hope the exit is joyful — and I hope never to return.”
– Frida Kahlo
Translator of omens, chloroformer
of slurs, abductor of wickedness rare
and new; at Shaman’s Drum, in Ann Arbor,
not one poet posed naked, nightmare
of flesh, on their book covers. Perversion
was just a word. Strange eyebrows, broken shoe,
Blue House; you’re still naked, your alien
body, without consent, remains on view,
exposed, gets sold. Others make us monsters.
Others sell us. Others bring us back. You
ribbon around bomb. You jaguar. You grief
in sheets too thin to scab. Blasphemies, slurs,
omens; art keeps us in hell. Who knew
that ink damns painter just like knife damns thief?