Molly Bess Rector
I.
Mornings I rise
a few degrees at a time
and dress myself
beside the water
in silence, brush iodine
into my hair, adorn
my cheeks in excess
moth wings, place
on my clavicle
a brooch: a six-legged frog.
II.
A lot of men come to study
my body.
They gather
impossible data:
What was it bore me
out of (their) control?
Back, they slide:
May hunker?
May take shelter?
Too late.
I'm building a realm
on reactions.
III.
I bet you'd never guess
how still the cooling pool
when once: tsunami,
sudden power surge, flood—
all this a kind of coronation
for the queen whose unstable
diadem slips between
her eyes, radiates.
Even the dust I slough
glows.
IV.
These men
look for origins.
Origin:
when we're born
the universe spins one way;
when we die
it spins the other—
procedure for the spirit
to follow.
Does anyone still
follow procedures?
Or think we can forestall
the end
with a good plan?
V.
I've never learned to think
except by acting. A different kind
of doctrine.
Granted: how fragile the core.
Granted: all systems rupture
when shaken hard
enough, given the chance
to melt down.
VI.
Origin: even that man came
emergently.
Wild alert, the ambulance squall;
his mother’s howls a kind of sonic fallout—
his refusal to be contained. Sure—
he can call me disaster if he wants.
Why does it matter
whose fault
I am? Now
I've made
this gown of waste.