- Machete
Misery won't touch you gentle. It always leaves its thumbprints on you; sometimes it leaves them for others to see, sometimes for nobody but you to know of.
―Edwidge Danticat, The Farming of Bones
Machete: I am
Steel cut silver glaciers splitting the sea in-to several bodies of water
Stripped winds slashing through leaves &felling branches & trees
Still ocean waves suspended in blue-curved motion ready to cleave
Stretched cirrus clouds slit open &ready to curdle a stormy scream
Single shards of lightning strip-ped from the fist of an angry god
Surgical scalpel weapons open &stitch scars & swollen wounds
Sullied nail file metal carving cut-icle cane harvest from brittle ground
Sharp teeth slicing raw meat &savaging a pack of hungry wolves
Slick needles blinded by the dark &without an eye for threading
Silhouette of fumbling fingers bathed in moon-light pointing at you, you &
you––the letter S split– at the spine & the sacrum [End Page 174]
Machete: my master
The hand is my masterThe flesh my songMy master says:"I know you don'tknow how to makea decision"so when he singsI swing [End Page 175]
Machete: the taste
I most prefer the taste of plátanos against my cheeks.Dry against my lips & sometimes sticky sweet on my gumsit severs smooth. I know that what I've cut will feed.
For thirst I like to strike balding coconut skulls swollenwith cerebral fluid that sprinkles my easy edges wet with milk.A drink of solace on a sweltering summer day.
Shredding bark, I spoon a gentle meal back & forth.Lapping the brown, I crave the soft rub of splintered wood.My sharpened tongue insatiable as I carve.
But I flinch when thrust against la caña. Sugar canenectar makes my mouth water. But I can't shakethe bitters of blood that warm my blades when I mistake
skin for stalk. I spit numb & gag.Teething pink muscle gets stuck between my teeth.Dull blades repent for feasting on human flesh.
When I finally hit stubborn bone, it snaps.The collapse, a fissured mountain of crumbling marble,a ballad of sour screams I cannot silence or swallow. [End Page 176]
Machete: names
You have called memany names:
KukiriBoloBarangBowieBillhookGolokHawkbillHeavyLatinParangaTapangaCane
You have used meto cut & conquer:
cartilagekingsskinbordersbonetreestendoncolonists& crops
But where can I findthe names of the fleshyou've made me carve?
Where have you buriedthe human limbsyou've made me cleave? [End Page 177]
Machete: acceptance
I eat paper for breakfast& rub my quiet along the banks of the River Massacre
I collect soil & sand on the tipsof my toes to feel a little less alone
There is the river with every bone in itHere is the blade littered with promise & swallowed names
There is the border of fish & flesh crossingHere is the sharp heat & hunger I want to love the rain
Raise the city up & dip my tongue in honeyremember the bones wild animals & sugarcane eat tree bark & almonds
I am your endings & your beginningsI am everything that begins & ends with blood [End Page 178]
Machete's Lullaby
In the darkin the darkmy dimpled grooveswill cratera heartbefore sunrise& in rainI'll find youagain & againmy handsin your handsglass hidingin sand [End Page 179]
Machete: undone
I understand decaygangrene woundsthat never seala shine that won't returnsunlight cutbetween the leaves of a palm tree
I know the ache of decaypulsing itchingsunburned poppies that flowerinto black dahlias when you want the bloodto flow but it won'twhen you want the steel to cutbut it bends grapes that failto ferment into wine
Decay is more than losseveryone knowsdustdecay is to lose more than onceWatch the pieceswither & fall one leafone limb one salted bladeat a timewings of a butterflydried up...