from VOCE

“ : ”



Sarah is dead.
Rebekah will come.

Sarah dead.
Rebekah comes loosely

bandaged. A freight rumor. Her
belly hovers burning

a crucible. Sarah kept the pins
in her hair taut even after

Isaac born among unlaid
eggs in a nest. Rebekah

comes from fresh-cut starfields
a shrine’s anachronistic bell

motions her to lay out dead fish
on a dirt line before a fat

constable. Beside the road
faceless children beg for

labor. Rebekah comes
uncovered arms waxen pedicels

serpents above her head
iconic she holds a blossom

bowl of mud for the carnally
overburdened men banish her

from their spiritual pulleys.
Sarah dead inside her cave

spins hollow thread through
an eyelet held between Rebekah’s

thumb & forefinger knit
a vacant mask of Proteus.

Rebekah comes carrying fresh
water in a clay jug for men

mouths lined with corn. They
hear the riverbanks collapse

into the sides of the jar. They
watch her pour the contents

out restlessly like rain
pouring from the bowels.






“ : ”



Seminal Inventory:

i. Tied to water well, she is a verse:

ii. tempus edax rerum

iii. Behold, there are flies in her hair, twins in the altar.

iv. She sings, once you let her open throat, let in the stampeding wind.

v. The first came, his body a red hairy mantle. They call his name, Esau.

vi. His brother came, clasped to Esau’s heel. They call his name, Jacob.

vii. Overripe grave in your hands.

viii. Vascular. Peduncle as part altarpiece, supports either a cluster or a solitary.

ix. In her cave, an epistrophic song. Sarah wore a single flower. A single flower wore to her death, ripening still after death.

x. She fades into the territories adjoining the Tigris, Euphrates. Rebekah’s bloody clothes found. Wind into the crescent.





Evolved Representation:
Orant, outstretched arms, palms up in prayer, not genuflecting, reed-like ground rattan, Rhapis excelsa.













“ : ”




Could I
awaken incisions?

Hymn through men
larvae pulsing the spirits

fear dead cell constellations a priori

simulate linoleum consciousness scope the floor

linoleum
lin

Linus
perfection the feast-bulb obscures
each

impregnable
lens






 Carolina Maugeri's poems have appeared in GutCult, Typo, Chicago Review, & Octopus. She performs with Providence chamber ensemble, Vulpine, & is currently a musician in The Cataract, a play by Lisa D'Amour.


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