CROSSING THE WORLD
for Joan

Crossing the world

she buckles under the metal-hooded mouth

of her maker

didn’t see it coming

all the women in her

centuries of emotional alchies

daydreaming in distilleries

deep-throating the sallow tongues of sundials

wanting not the backwards

not to fall upon herself like a dagger

she’s been under its tires

since the non-beginning

of the women’s de-liberation

reversement

been dragged over eras—

Cenozoic speed-bumping her

into the 21st

tugging at her buttons and pearls

digging into the last of her titles

all the women in her

wrapped around exhaust pipes and pit stains

beating her head against pavement

skinning her raw

slow-cooking ribs on rubber rotisserie

tossing out the Tubmans

Woolfs

Di Primas

from her collapsing last impression

its grease

rolling over every feather

all fingers/fading colors

blue eyes

beat black

red thoughts

cocked pink

wouldn’t have hit her

    could she be seen

wouldn’t have hit her

    had she not been so black

wouldn’t have hit her

    had she been he

wouldn’t have hit her

    had she not talked back

Oh, if only

she’d let herself be

the vacation spot for prick pit stops

would’ve pinned her lips

to that politician’s dick/a purple heart

for the rash of wrath’s backlash

If only!

she stayed by his

Spitzer

Edwards

Schwarzenegger

strayed not

from her Turner!

Run not for president

when no one detonated her

when no one asked her!

Oh, why won’t she be

a slant-eyed hut fuck

for a soldier’s thrust boar tusk

a Hawaiian delicacy

for the constituencies of Male-Whitey?

Why won’t she be

Squaw

Negress

Jap

Turtle

Zipperhead

Yellow-hole

Changa

Puta

or Hilton?

All the women in her

never get rights

only get what’s left over

from every hit ’n’ run

from every ass pinch to fat fist

from the violent injustices

of our dead sons:

Lennon for singing

“Woman is the Nigger of the World”

Van Gogh for filming

the Koran’s hands ripping through

Hirsi Ali’s flesh with vengeance

Jesus

for resurrecting

not with the help

of a deadbeat

invisible father

but that of his Mary

and his Mother

the thousands of Iraqimericans

whose commonality consists

of marinating body parts in blood baths

or any young boy

whose throat’s gutted by machete

for protecting a single slit

in his family

All the women

out of her

tumbling

thrown to the licensed road lions

to the future drivers of divinity’s demolition

garter belt conceptionists

high-heel fuckers

Hollywood hogs

with driveways bigger

than God’s complex

crashing us

into lipstick destruction

and false feminine

banging us against

scented stationery

the boss’s desk

stapled clits

to the drawing board

Water balloon breasts

busting against humanity’s door

under-wire

an ancient snake with a new twist

ripping out our rights to choice

with the wire hangers holding

the sexified dominatrix suit of a Republican “feminist”

the stained cloth commemoration of the 42^nd President

the hated dyke-tux of a politician’s wife’s career flux

after he’s caught in bed again with another woman:

Traitors!              Thieves!

Accomplices!     Witnesses!

Aggravators!      Lynchers!

Spies!                 Prosecutors!

ALL

crossing the world

bailing from her bodies

hating the mother out of Earth

gifting their guts to the sidewalk serpents

sending ghosts to bed hungry

pulling their pieces to the edges of humanity

curbside delivery of revolutionaries