The Marbled Sigh

Father, Redacted

god damn our mutual hate of exercise
cough my heart out as I rush to find
you    try not to take in the hues of red
christening your head
the walls    you
on the floor    I realize
           I cannot
pick you up
                 fickle
futile arms

can’t place my core

How to Undo Me

                                         As simple as you asking

what my name is

I tell you of these words        imposed         unleafed
words standing with eyes shifting  words lifted
as a standard     for three wars now lost

See how they fall on me
See how they shoot me forth

I have no business with this name I’m told to carry
I have a back that gives out every night
I write that name down
I write it at the bottom of a crate and close it
I hope somebody finds it once the tale is over
I hope they wear it as a charm and think it right
and simple

                                                 as you asking

where I’m from

to me a place is just a slapdash fate

     –    half island of amnesia
     –    half olive tree unlimbed
     –    a whole half-hearted hankering for the new world
          that wasn’t

I think I’d trade my larynx for free will
I’d take a day of rest from concocting a face
that won’t cause you alarm

from recasting the part
‘cos I myself was born
with wrists too narrow for hard labour
a voice too soft to cause the scene assigned
by someone’s color scale

I have three answers primed to go and justify me
I’ll drag with me forever all these alibis

And yes I’d choose to remain silent
‘cos every question too is words obliterating
I’ll never have an answer that unlinks this chain

I’d stand and stare you right
into a nightfield of no wonderings
into a tongue-tied dark

We’d conjure up together every
thing that is worth knowing
of the cracking
of branches, of the violence
of noise

Virginia Gris is a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist with a background in poetry, theatre, and film. She was born in the Dominican Republic to a family of mixed heritage—immigrants from Spain and Palestine, as well as native Dominicans. This amalgam of cultures, as well as art forms, is a significant theme in her creative work.  Gris’s film work has been part of the lineup at several international venues while her poetry has been accepted for publication in  The Marbled Sigh, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Promethean, and in several Hispanic publications.  She is a co-organizer of the City Reading Series and is currently completing the Creative Writing MFA at The City College of New York.