Raving: I
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Once I wrote a poem larger than any man, even Jesus. So tall the furrow of hair couldn’t be tousled, feet large as lakes. I titled it Personification so it would live, Godzilla in parenthesis so it would kill.
There was blood. Testicles lay in the streets like confetti post-parade. I was glad: Diana after Actaeon’s own salivating pack consumed him— limb by limb licked, tendons trailing.
I rode the shoulder of my poem, wanting to see their faces, none specific, all malevolent, calling out last moments in ridiculous language—love, affection, Tender, one screamed. Not loudly enough and too late.
I wore red paint, salvaging neither plated breast, nor firm mouth. Not once was I tender. I wanted them wasted—him, him, him, him, him [End Page 1069]
CM Burroughs, who received her MFA degree from the University of Pittsburgh, has received commissions from the Studio Museum of Harlem and the Warhol Museum to create poetry in response to installations. Her poetry has appeared in jubilat, PLUCK!, Bat City Review, Eleven Eleven, and Tuesday: An Art Project. She has been a fellow at The MacDowell Colony and Cave Canem.
