Hermaphropoetics / Brown Dust
The camera zooms and pans
blinking in and out sunlight/blackness
a glass of ice water sparkles
sunlight/blackness
The hermaphrodite
seated on the stump of a tree
his teeth overlapping
out of her mouth protrudes his tongue
Hibiscus goose grass leaves mango
sunlight/blackness
she could feel the shape of colors
the flesh of the apple drinking colors
Blood of the months of the year
Four bearded elders linking arms
circling clockwise
every day bears the data sweat mucus
tears urine corkscrews of earwax
A strange rain vertical/horizontal
layers of brown dust light heat
see the subjects
spectacular the photos
Photos of a master photographer
focusing her lens -
the physical poetic eyes seeing
an asymmetrical form
Blinking in and out sunlight/blackness
eyes seeing
the size of the skeleton the bones
the shape of the head
Micrographic photographs
eye sockets thickness of fat layers
eyes seeing a slit in the stalk
blood seeping
The hermaphrodite emptied of allegory
seated on the stump of a tree
The hermaphrodite
her/his body swaying side to side
one foot sunk in mud a hand dangling
out of the frame
A flush of wet hot air burning
her neck and face
five musicians chanting drumming
squatting on their heels
Sinuous the rhythms beneath the skin
the nerves spirals of veins
fibrous tendons
twisting zigzagging
Six bearded elders linking arms
circling circling clockwise
a boy warrior with pierced nipples
Her soaring paper thin shoulderblades
green and pale the scrotal lily
The muscles of his onion-shaped calves
spasmodic in the dust
an impure creation captured after the siege
carnal/spiritual
Teasing femme/homme
her henna-dyed palms his fingers
working black kohl
the inner and outer eyelids
Rose gold the eyes of the hermaphrodite
molecular the creeping tension
the flow of hormonal forces
sunlight/blackness
Every day bears the data
a master photographer altering
perception the ruinscape disappearing
signs and wonders
In the concrete space audio recordings
fluorescent bulbs protruding
a little girl dangling
a vinyl mask
A little boy wearing harem pants
fickle he saunters by the taste of her sweat
seawater his/her body
carnal/spiritual
Wedding bells Wedding cake
berries and apricots under the veil
joyful the bridegroom
lifting the veil
A long curved fingernail
tracing the cleft
pale and red the folds slashes
of color seeping
the flower vulva cut away
Eight warlords singing
linking arms circling circling clockwise
bulbous and blood-packed
their lips
Nine chanting the legend
waxing poetic
a legend of a child falling out of the sky
see the photos sunlight/blackness
A white swan shimmering
in scene after scene a strange rain vertical
/horizontal blinking in and out
piles of rocks
Fluorescent bulbs protruding
a figure trussed and lying down
A camera flash
a glass of ice water sparkles
—Rochelle Owens