Annie Christain is an assistant professor of composition and ESOL at SUNY Cobleskill with poems appearing in Seneca Review, Oxford Poetry, The Chariton Review, and The Lifted Brow, among others. She received the grand prize of the 2013 Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Contest, the 2013 Greg Grummer Poetry Award, the 2015 Oakland School of the Arts Enizagam Poetry Award, and the 2015 Neil Shepard Prize in Poetry. Additional honors include her being selected for the Shanghai Swatch Art Peace Hotel Artist Residency and the Arctic Circle Autumn Art and Science Expedition Residency.
The Sect Which Pulls the Sinews: I’ve Seen You Handle Cocoons*
“[A man] shall not lie with another man as [he would] with a woman, it is a to’eva.”
(Leviticus 18:22)
Silkworm dung lines my gums for tea;
I clutch menorah for paddle.
Malka, give me mother-strength
to save the scrolls.
I could never lie with Yôhanan
as I lie with women—
our chewing mouthparts,
our tongues just wringed fiber.
My holy sparks dwell in him.
The first time I touched a boy,
I glimpsed pomegranate arils in the bowl
and felt beetles walk across my chest.
When I crushed them,
a monstrous insect leg broke
forth from my midsection,
ready to strike me at any time—
how I discovered my nature.
With faith, I could have spat into my hand,
clapped, and scored myself with a knife.
Instead, I, the most Chinese of the Chinese Jews,
love Silk Maker Yôhanan,
who sees me as a dybbuk.
It’s true I carve questions onto the bones
of a rooster during Passover
and leave my doorpost bare.
You bring the smell of juniper and ammonia,
he hissed at my belly while breaking his tools.
I burned this foreign body once to please him,
but new and stranger shoots emerged.
I imagine placing his hand there.
There is no Malka,
Just a mother who carved Shalom
onto my infant chest
before drowning herself.
Carry me away, Yôhanan,
if I wind myself up in the floating Torah;
the sign on my hand is twisted bark,
fringe, spooned over pulp.
I’ve seen you handle cocoons.
* First published in ICON
~
We Must Kill All Rats Before We Can Kill Your Rats*
When I’m up late mixing concrete, the little children who live inside the walls scratch out phoenix designs. I talk to myself to drown out their chants of white devil,
and never once do I mention the Revolution—only how the leaders put an end to starvation.
I explained all my problems to the apartment manager, but he just said: We must kill all rats before we can kill your rats. It’s true because the police only wiped out the local cat population after they had reached a tipping point.
To talk of starvation—my mom stopped feeding me when I was five because she was too busy sleeping with men to get free rations of chocolates and cigarettes. No wonder I ask the gods for more and more offspring—
no one pays attention to just one emaciated child.
Soon I was allowed to plug up all the rat holes in my apartment if I paid for the cement myself. Word of my strong character spread to all the parents on the block with left-over women daughters. Every mother I meet bows and gives me soft chicken bones and eggs preserved in ash and salt. I only take them because it means less food for her.
The guards told me with pride that they help all the sick mothers on my block. Just in case it’s true, I place bananas at the feet of Shiva gutting a mermaid-whore so I can convince the gods to make more mothers suffer alone.
I spend my time renovating my apartment, teaching English, shooting roosters bound to blocks of ice, or volunteering to improve society. Just yesterday Onion’s parents gave her gold earrings and pushed her into the closet where I was waiting to finally give them a grandson. I paid for those earrings myself.
Her male ancestors stood on a cloud and cheered me on with their demands for a male heir. I told her what I tell all the girls: I want to investigate your faith.
Many of these so-called cherished mothers here sleep stacked in silos that once stored rice. I shook their hands while the director of the senior center snapped some photos. The newspaper article said I was a doctor from a local medical university doing routine check-ups.
Western man monitors health of Bao Ming . . . .
Her kind won’t be safe anywhere in this world.
* First published in Skidrow Penthouse
Thanks to CR Press