POETRY
She-Wolf & other poems.
Words by Amy Baskin & illustration by Višnja Mihatov Barić
She-Wolf
If you were ever incarcerated and sentenced to death by starvation, I would be your Pero
and endow you with sustenance.
Jailed plebeian, I would nourish you. I feel my milk let down as I write this.
Pin needles of ecstatic pain gushing to joy and relief.
If you were stranded sick and starving in the corner of a barn, I would find you,
hold my teat to your lips, and feed you like my own children.
This is the kiss of life— no mere write-off. My largesse is a hand-out I most willingly
contribute. Even Juno suckled Hercules.
I fattened Romulus and Remus, hid them in the Lupercal den. I have even fostered
orphaned bear cubs when their own blood has failed them, though no one writes of this.
I express to you oblation! For what is life if not radical kinship? If not competent at
giving, at sharing each lick and drop of cream?
*
voyeur
—for Sahar Dofdaa
watch that hollowed body fight for air
memorize her translucent skin the death in her eyes
imagine her parents just out of frame
hearts carrying rubble of a life they made for her
is there a phone number we could call
food money we could send to a sane civic leader
in Kigali they used machetes
they called her family cockroaches until they were gone
in Srebrenica they dug mass graves
Ratko and the Scorpions heaved her father inside
in Asperg they took their fingerprints
and sewed brown triangles on her mother’s uniform
in Auschwitz they gassed her in showers
next to ethnic Poles, the disabled and freemasons
in the mindsight of my inner eye
I smell this baby’s scent my milk lets down to feed her
listen now to Radio Sada
from Damascus on an app we can download for free
baby girl are you still hovering there
does your precious soul throb to the same rhythm as mine
*
Push My Button
“What would a yin utopia be? It would be dark, wet, obscure, weak, yielding, passive, participatory, circular, cyclical, peaceful, nurturant, retreating, contracting, and cold.”—Ursula K. Le Guin
If I designed weapons what would they look like
would they be dark, fertile wombs
wet, tongued-polished caverns
obscure incubators of milky, vibrant aftershocks
would they be attached to the mothership with umbilical cords
each fat boy yielding, dependent upon its vessel
one thing is certain—they would not be hot
would we kill the enemy
with kindness
nurture them to death
how can you injure someone with something you birthed
and repeatedly fed from your breast
some women acclimate to the male metaphor
strapping on phalluses whether they wear dresses
or pantsuits, submitting to the limitations
of a destructive framework
today’s geopolitics shoot dicks through the sky able to
deeply penetrate the eye of a needle or the asshole of a camel
from thousands of miles away using nothing but a grimy joystick
in a darkened room, boy toys of vertical erector launchers,
thrust-to-weight ratios,
soft lay downs, weighing the benefits of protracted versus
spasm attacks, and final releases
loads in orgasmic wallops
one thing is certain
the button to trigger my weapons
would be tiny, retreating
and difficult to find
you would have to yield to me
and every resident before receiving the go-ahead to even see it
never mind touch it for it to ignite
ideas and growth
food and nourishment
you would have to please me to play with
my weapons of mass conception
the midwives
keen ones wake early
bear witness
boil water
hold legs
rub backs
attend
keen ones jog walk dogs
smile and nod at each other
witness the sun crown its head
over earth’s belly
silence gives way to birdsong
birdsong to footsteps
footsteps to tires
bikes to cars
darkness to light
colors emerge timid at first
then crying full-lunged
pink ruddy red wet alive
keen ones use their hands
brush aside cowl
lining amniotic sac
slip fingers between cord
and tender neck
and just like that
day catches breath
Amy's work is featured in Friends Journal, Califragile, Every Pigeon, apt, and more. She is a 2016 Willamette Writers Kay Snow Poetry award recipient for her poem “About Face.” Her current work examines the world as it labors through a difficult rebirth.