← v9n2, Fall 2010
Poetry · Volume 9, Number 2

Ochre vii

First, go forth & find a reed through which to pour yourself.

Inhale, exhale. For days you have danced & chanted

Drinking only your own blood from a chalice

Spiked with belladonna, mushroom,

your clansmen’s spit.

Now ready your palette. The cheeks balloon. Exhale

& the mixture wreathes each finger. Your mouth & lips

Are red as hemorrhage. Down your chin it trails.

The taste of ochre surges & ebbs

Or the bitter synesthetic tang of charcoal

Darkens both mouth & torchlit wall.

Our selves’

Relentless shuttle—we are form & function, solo

& clan. The oldest of the women hefts

A child toward the ceiling. He bends two fingers down.

From his lips

the self flares out incarnadine.