It takes work for a woman to welcome a fist
With her body. Fists are larger than the spaces
They make for themselves in a chest, or the holes
Into which we welcome them with longing.
Asking whether I wish for one now because I knew
Them well as a child is like asking if a volcano
Expels lava because, when a small mountain
Cloistered within seawaters, its first experience
Of heat was unbidden. The question
Requires a certain old knowledge of safety to ask.
What does it mean that the first time you saw a cock
It was raised in menace from a boil of shared blood,
The question says. Tell me the origin story of pain,
And tell me what happens to pain as it ages,
And tell me how the ocean-bottom dirt you grew
From tastes. Volcanoes understand differences
In kinds and in chords. The origin story of pain
Is abjection, foisted. Not a single stream of lava
Is like one that has come before or will come since.
All my lips make treacherous lights float in midair.
from ArrowFind more by Sumita Chakraborty at the library
Copyright © 2020 Sumita Chakraborty
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Alice James Books.