Exile Sonnet, and: Julia Speaks of Shaving

Exile Sonnet

Away from you and nowhere near the sea,my body brims—my eyes are knots of glasskeel-petaled like a circumpolar pea—my lashes are a crop of marram grass—my ears are roaring shells—a soaking vinethrottles a gull whose chalky mandibleuncombs my hair—my bowels churn with brine—the crust across my lips is tangible—

I try to love the land—my skeletonslops liquid salt, procumbent in the lawn—

I try to love the land—I cast around—I end up buying oysters by the pound—

their carapaces lacerate my hands—I eat—I bleed—I try to love the land—

Julia Speaks of Shaving

I did it,not for a man,but for a pair of shoes.

Blue gauze growsfrom their leatherto wrap like wet seaweed

up the anklesand tie behind the calves.When I put them on,

they did not say:I like these, the scrapedslabs of whitefish protruding

from your voluminous skirts, beneathyour luminous body,but a man said roughly

those words. In bed,though, accustomed to the usualcrop of copper wires,

it was as if his handswere driftwood and my hipsthe surface of the ocean.

Below, my legs—two polished lipsof a giant mollusk—

stroked each other,slippy and pallidas uncooked scallops.