In the City, a New Congregation Finds Her
- In the City, a New Congregation Finds Her
She keeps safe our memory when nothing's committed to stoneSibilant selvedge woman thread and knots talkstory woman
She whose memories not paperbound lover of midnight wordsScrawled myth upon flesh woman indigo testimony tattoo woman
We bring her spirits we've captured in bottlesFire water woman imbibes the spirits woman
We bring her dried tobacco leaves and teaExhales the word woman fullmoon weaving woman
She looses her thick hair from its pins and coilsLitany liturgy woman stitching suture woman
She settles into her favorite chair she always begins like thisSoul gatherer woman spiderweb songbird woman
She breathes steam from tea steeped stems and petalsPiece and patchwork woman down home cookin woman
She crushes anise stars sweetens nightmare into reverieStone by stone woman singed and soot woman
She cups glazed clay between cracked handsSilver winged bird woman riverine dream-filled woman
She rubs together palms callused she who conjures for us a feastSugar tinctured moonwoman twittering songstress moonwoman
She whose eyes widen with black thundercloud and seaSalt luster sirenwoman winter solstice madwoman
She whose voice billows and peals she whose eyes gaze nowhereHowling nomad madwoman cut the bullshit madwoman
Her lips release language not of paper sometimes (we think) she forgetsOlder than the ocean woman sargassum and seashell woman
She who has kept vigil always she of the wing-kissed sunsetSipping starlight woman before there was a nailed god woman [End Page 126]
Barbara Jane Reyes (bjanepr@gmail.com) is the author of Gravities of Center (2003), Poeta en San Francisco (2005), Diwata (2010), and the chapbooks Easter Sunday, Cherry, and West Oakland Sutra for the AK-47 Shooter at 3:00 AM and other Oakland Poems. Her poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in such publications as Asian Pacific American Journal, Border Senses, Fourteen Hills, HOW2, In the Grove, Latino Poetry Review, New American Writing, North American Review, Notre Dame Review, and XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics, as well as the anthologies Babaylan (2000), Going Home to a Landscape (2003), Pinoy Poetics (2004), and Poets on Teaching (2010). She currently teaches in Philippine Studies at the University of San Francisco.
