A Brief  History of  Hysteria

All of this magic is death:

                                            your vicious little organ singing like a drunk uncle,

                                                                             the beautiful, white-headed children

                                                        that passed through your body,

the cats you fed till plump as pimples and languid.

Who let the rot in? And what if you never return—full and free—

                                     to that alleyway in Morocco where old men watched

                                     as he entered you?

Where are your daughters?

             The holiday pies filled blood-red with wild rhubarb.

And tonight, on each continent, women are teaching other women to be vessels.

Women are singing sweetly to get what they want by force.

What will you remember of this place

                                                                                     The naked limbs in the orchard,

                                                                      the crust left along the empty bowl,

                                 your own hands on your stomach in the browned-out night.

A sense of abandon placed among the linen, sharp-lined and never dirty.

On gray gadgets you’re kept humming.

Stories about rivers are stories about girls who want things, you taught them.

                       And the machines that fix other machines are not glamorous technologies.

In the yellow kitchen, a silent anxiety attack.

                                 Breathe deep and drop nothing off your tray, my sweet.