The Binary Code Explained to Children, and On the Hunt or Sweet Servitude

The Binary Code Explained to Children

Under every manifesto and every mirrorevery travel journalor little notebookprofiling what has never been seen …

Under every declaration of love and every pleaevery tongue/advanced/toward othernessabove every portrait(female/black/young/Caribbean)I found the weight of the same adjectives:

seductive-incomprehensible-immatureincontinent-unstable-lazyweakAs if one were the measure of the worldand like a cupcakewhose borders were trimmedwhen it overflowed the panand like an octopus curled upin a little school desk:

the other was always disproportionate.Does the watercolor painter dump into / demand of the landscapewhat he himself is lacking / what is inside the caveWith the concave mirror in placeI could deploy the invader:for being a veteran-intellectual-cowardmeasured-stubborn/energetic-ro/bust.

But I'd rather / head out for my evening swimming lesson.Some brainy female economists saythat zero / isn't completed (in itself) by onethat a fish without a bicycle(not bothered by pedals

or oversized handlebars)can swim across the Sargasso Seaand take delight(feet/gills plungedinto the mangrove jelly)in inciting her own rebellion.

On the Hunt or Sweet Servitude

Along your body's edge I march to the slaughterhousewith my fingertipstracing the edge of your mouthyour tonguethe plain of burning pubis and your head.I think about the women executedabout Joan of Arcabout Charlotte Cordayabout Ana Bolena belovedabhorredabout Maria Antonieta lowering the edge of her blouseplunging its neckline to offer herself up to the blade

I think about the Countess of La Môtewith her lover's head in her lapcut off at the legsand about Salomé's lascivious headwith the Baptist's headringing like a charm in the gale of her womb.

I stretch out my handthinking of the mystical poetsthe tormented skin of Sor Juana and San Juanstray gazelles in the night of nightsabout their desire and their painabout the weak flesh of their hungers—a pierced sieve.I think of that painting by Michaelangeloand about the instant your finger meets God's fingeryour fingertip of a boy alonefearing the Lezamian night.

The tradition of all womenpiles up around my neck and I yieldto receiving you I curl upflexible like a cane over the bed—of the (vio)lent/slow river.The eagerness for slaveryand the eagerness to possessare incarnated in our cold bodies.

Lead me to the slaughterhouseraise an arch of triumphexpel me from the Gaza Stripflagellatecrack the skinburn down Rome againforget about carnations, unleash the cannons.Take full advantage of your rights,exposing me, selling me nakedgiving meevery possible deathbut never even reaching seven.

Be my Lord / feudal lord / my Cidmy Caesar / my tyrant / my luxuriant(ous) emperor.Be my dictatorwounding with your tongue and your fingersdon't be afraidto stretch your fingertips out to mewith the sweetness of a budor the ruthlessness of a root.

Let's trade that touchfor the kingdom of my bodythe price in gold for my headfor my estuary.Your touch for my perfumesimpregnated in your fingerswith the essencethat you men dig around in without ever findingfrom the treasure of youth to the fountain of lifefrom the elixir of the godsto the Holy Grail.

Lead me to the slaughterhouseto the attackto the goringto the rodeoto the mad fluttering of bloodthat spurts out in cockfights.We're prey and executioner againlet's repeat the sweet servitudeand the magnicideand the spasmodic terror of revolutionsvomiting like a geyser their desirefor beauty and for death.