Medusa

 
       i.

I will write my body: learn uncertain curves
and find an active voice in a passive angel.
My pink skin will unfold—reverse
                                   paper-crane— 
 
a matte piece of paper; crinkles, pencil lines
remain. The muscles in my thighs throb
a crescent moon descends from the top
of my legs              to purple knees.
 
White vines stretch across my hips, knit
a slender web of physicality. The glass
shell implodes. Fire and air streams
through my hair.

A burgundy skirt reveals violet knees— 
an active monster— 
I find certain curves.
 
       ii. 

heavy cotton lingers over my breasts, casts
shadows. i curl in fetal position, an infant
void of womb, resides in the burn of light.
i wear an undershirt       so they cannot see.
 
passive voice trembles over my chords, vocals
strain through mute pink lips—femininity.
an un-aggressive landscape of pines and
                                          a stream between.
 
i blur the uncertain curve of my cheek
with rosy powder. they derive pleasure
from a silent woman— 
 
i will torture them with fabric.
 
       iii.

Un-think the thinness of skin, poison of
body and pregnant silence. I am cosmic,
a gush of white air that breathes through my
lungs. normality
                        blows away with my whisper.
 
Feminine curve is soft and hard, gold and silver
and pink and words and ink, inscribe the body.
Drain breasts of passive mystery, release
tension—         I shatter— 
 
I kiss a limitless country of conscious, un-do
the abysmal gaps in desire, swallow the music
and see in certain color. 

---

Bridget Fertal is a poet from Lancaster, PA. In addition to Francis House, her poetry has been published in Generation. Her work experiments with syntax and fuses physicality with indefinites as she probes the relationship between an individual and the space in which they reside. 

next