The Reckoning

The Reckoning

is born as whispers

which turn into snowflakes

melt into rainn

weep onto quiet fields

wake seeds

buried in the shit.

Dad-men, madmen,

fathers of daughters unpowered

by your brothers of the hunt

your bull and guilt,

creeping filth

like a five-o’clock shadow

you’re afraid.

The Reckoning feeds

seeds that stretch in the night

to eat the dark

drink the moon

demand the dawn

claim the sun

rub it on our skin

soak it into our bones.

So afraid, manly men, you’re unmade

by the mirror,

horrified cuz no matter how hard

you try, how loud the cheers amplified

by a surround-sound system

of institutional lies

you can still hear us.

The Reckoning

transforms us into tigers

hunting you down

one by one,

dragging you by the nape

of your dirty necks

to face her

face him

face them

the souls possessed of the bodies you stole

for what you thought was just a few minutes.

And after the crop is harvested

the fields cleared of rocks and stubble

swords beaten into plowshares

dirt furrowed

the new seeds, planted deep and cared for,

will grow into strong children

with kind hands and strong bodies

and honorable hearts

the first generation unscarred

untouchable

that’s your loss

and our triumph

sincerely,

Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way.

Maybe we should shout

out to all the dudes who didn’t rape

us. Or even try.

Let’s celebrate those

who ask permission

before touching and

—get this—

respect the answer!

High five, you lovable hunk of manhood!

You true Warrior of the Sword!

Thanks for not slipping me a roofie!

So grateful you didn’t gang-rape

me with your roommates!

I didn’t get herpes

from you, because you are so awesome

you didn’t hit

me, then shove your dick in my mouth!

You rock!

A brave new world

of greeting cards

dawns.

Dear Boss,

Just a heads-up to let you know

I’m sending flowers

to your mother

to tell her how wonderful you are

because you’ve never pulled out your dick

and masturbated in front of me.

Dear College President,

I am proud to announce that none of my professors

this semester

tried to force me to blow them.

Those lawsuits have made a difference!

Great job! Keep it up!

(Sorry about that pun.)

(Actually, no. Not sorry at all.)

It’s not just what you say, but how

right?

not responsible for contents

The letter came from a prison

on the first page the man wrote

that he read Speak,

then he spoke, wrote his trauma, his boy

body the toy of an uncle for so long

that his Before It Happened was too short

to remember

on page two he wrote more

furtively, turning his hurt

into hunger, thundering, covering

the truth of his circumstances

the accusations of his molestation

of his stepdaughters, all

of them under seven years old

he told a tale of justice failed,

jailed innocent, he declared

wondering why the world

had turned against him

line after scrawled line

he mounded his hurts into a bonfire

of his vanities to burn

out the damning and hide

his crimes in smoke

I dug around, found the other side

to the story, before his trial

he confessed on Facebook

that a different person

lived inside of him

and that the different person

might . . . have hurt . . . the girls,

maybe,

if it happened, he was sorry

sort of

the jury convicted him in sixty minutes

the judge sentenced him to ninety years

in prison

where he scribbles with a poison pen

when you get a letter from jail

the envelope is stamped

“Not Responsible for Contents”

but somehow,

we are

Catalyst

I wrote a book about a girl who loves chemistry

a cross-country runner, preacher’s daughter

only applies to MIT, and well, complications ensue

she’s a little like me, but not much

to the outside world, it seems her life is perfect

but she’s got a hole in her heart, panic in her veins

dread stalking close

she runs to stay ahead of it

her name is a wayfinder

Kate—the sound of an ax splitting wood

Malone—which is “one,” “lone”

“alone” and “Ma,” if you look close enough,

her mother died a long time ago

and that ache will never go away

I knew that Kate’s I’m fine! mask was suffocating

but I didn’t know what would convince her

to take it off

she needed a catalyst

that spark, a goad to force her out of her shell

so she could see herself for the very first time

one night, after hours of scribbling

and throwing out pages,

frustrated with my Kate quandary, I doze-dreamed

fingers dribbling sand by the ocean

of my imagination

I watched

as a new girl appeared

an angry girl

hands fisted out of habit

toes scuffing the dirt

in the yard;

dirt on the floor

grease on the stove

grime on her body

left by her father

the smelly girl

who everybody looks at

but nobody ever sees

Teri Litch

her last name means “corpse”

readers bewitched by a book

rarely peek under the lid of names

to the stewpots of boiling imagery below

but I need to taste a name’s marrow

to write a character to life

kids like Teri Litch

don’t have running water at home

they go unnoticed until the smell is unavoidable

and a kind teacher

offers to help with the laundry

and the faculty quietly collects canned food

so lunch won’t be her only meal

few realized that the book

is really Teri’s story, deliberately told

through Kate’s cloudy vision

cuz Kate is still learning how to see

the girls are catalysts for each other

their collisions changing the course

of their lives,      friendship grows

in the most unexpected places

face my truth

This is not

a resting bitch face

This is

a touch-me-and-die face

a boy, a priest unholy

I was once a happy kid,

the man said

altar boy,

Boy Scout, shortstop

born on Sunday,

son and oldest brother

ten years old,

then eleven,

I loved the Lord our Father

Father Michael gave

me cup wine sip

wafer mouth open

he blessed me,

invited me

(special! so special!)

to the wreck room,

the re-creation room

wood-paneled basement lair

below the rectory

i was chosen

by the Lord,

father michael purred.

i had potential,

father michael told my parents

who never once asked

“Potential for what?”

the wreck room stank

of moldy clothes,

sweat and desperation

sweet wine and manipulation

vomit, candy, and exploitation

the taint of horror

he was a man of God

Christ, i thought

he was God

one night, my dad smelled

the stains on my uniform

from St. Michael the Archangel Elementary,

where father michael taught math

and subjects unholy in the wreck room

Dad’s face a volcano

on the verge of eruption,

i explained

he stayed silent,

clock ticking on the wall

silent as he burned

my uniform in the trash

barrel behind the garage.

He lied to Mom, said he wrecked my

uniform with bleach. My fault, he told her,

not his.

Not your fault, he told me

but don’t say a word

not a single word

to anyone.

Ever.

i still had to go to church

after that, though i stopped serving

at the altar, thank God.

When the time came

to kneel at the feet

of the priests

for Communion,

baby-boy bird mouth open

waiting to be sanctified

my dad knelt by my side.

My dad stared

at father michael feeding

me the Body and the Blood

with stained hands

my dad’s heart thundered

like a volcano, hungry

to destroy.

I don’t go to church anymore,

the man said. Not many do.

Infected by the angel-cloaked demons

whose hymns condemned us to darkness

with a smile;

we are legion.

loud fences

when I went to elementary school,

Wednesday afternoons

were for art projects and library books

and playing outside

because I wasn’t Catholic

all the Catholic kids left after lunch on Wednesday

and walked to the parochial school down the block

for lessons from the priests and the nuns

everyone knew about the dangerous priest there

even kids like me who never met him

don’t get caught in a room alone with that one,

they said

he liked hurting kids

bad and gross hurting

which is a good way to describe sexual abuse

when you’re ten years old

I traveled to Australia a while back

to speak at conferences, schools, and libraries

and be astounded by everything

from kookaburras to Vegemite

my last stop on the tour was in Ballarat,

on the Yarrowee River

the school canceled my appearance

at the last minute

instead, I spoke at the public library

to a small group of kids

the librarian pulled me aside before handing

me the mic

she whispered that a sexual abuse scandal

was unfolding in town

and asked me to be sensitive about it

Ballarat had priests who liked to bad-and-gross-

hurt children

just like Syracuse. Just like Boston. Minneapolis.

Dallas.

Arizona, Iowa, Oregon, Wisconsin, California,

Kentucky, Colorado

Chile, Ireland, Austria, Canada, Guam

just like everywhere

in Australia alone, there are thousands of victims

countless suicides and immeasurable grief

the official investigation that began

the week I was in Ballarat

has now reached all the way to the Vatican

In Ballarat, like in so many other places

it wasn’t one priest, it was many

generations of priests abusing

generations of children

In Ballarat, like in so many other places

some kids told their parents,

who confronted bishops

who moved the pedophiles

to new churches, new schools

where they had new flocks to prey on

But in Ballarat, unlike so many other places

something different happened

in Ballarat people tied colorful ribbons

to the fences

around the cathedral and the schools

where children

had been molested and raped

the ribbons loudly supported the survivors

of the predatory priests

and their families and everyone who loved them

the ribbons shouted that they were not alone

the ribbons announced that they were seen

the ribbons demonstrated that they were heard

the ribbons signaled revolution

more people tied ribbons to the fences

until all you could see were the colors,

not the iron rusting underneath

the church cut them off, but by morning

the fences were again beribboned

the church cut them off

the people put them back

then the ribbons spread to other cities,

other churches, other schools

across Australia and to other countries

all the way to the Vatican

in Ballarat those stubborn flags of hope

created Loud Fence; the term refers

to persistently, relentlessly reminding victims

of sexual violence

that they are important and supported and good

when I was in elementary school

and my friends walked

down to the church for their Wednesday lessons

I had to memorize poetry for a teacher

I chose “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost

about neighbors and the work of repairing

stone walls, of walling in and walling out

the famous line still opens itself in my head,

from time to time reminding that

“good fences make good neighbors”

in Ballarat,

good neighbors make loud fences

the language of love made visible

feralmoans

your brain, young thing

shadow-dancing with lightning

swimming, brimming with yearn, churn

and the sex! woo-boy! and hungers

you can’t name yet, and crayon smells,

spells compelling, carouseling

under-skin earthquakes

altering your landscapes

eyesight, earhear changing every minute, dear

too close, too far, unplowed crowd

drowning, downing, drawn to

warm bodies like

a moth

to a flame

be careful

out there,

k?

emerging

wet-winged butterflies

wobbly antennae, shaky knees

their faces still lined

with chrysalis wrinkles

finally at liberty

straining to take flight

while terrified kings

reigning suspicious

witness the butterflies’

metamorphosis

effecting change

from elementary stasis

to fluttering chaos, launching

in the dawn’s early fight

their unrestrained campaign

to remove politicians

from their paper palaces

bought and paid for,

the sad, recoiling kings

freak

because the otherworldly magic

available to the newly hatched

is boundless and unbreakable

which is why the powerful

won’t let the young vote

But the kids know how to use matches

two opposites of rape

To have sex

is human.

To make love,

Divine.

yes, please

“yes”

sounds like heaven falling from the sky

yes smells like hot, hot

sweet apple pie

yes dances hip to hip, eye to eye

sober, yes

demands very sober, cuz yes shares this body

touch me

with permission only, yes—signed, sealed

deliverance from evil, no sin to be

tempted, but only with yes in the sheets

yes in the backseat, yes to a condom

yes, please go down on me until yes!

because yes is not swipe right, yes is hello

I want to get to know

you because maybe we

might yes, but the dance comes first, yes

the interplay of hey, flirt, hey, the pounding heart

of questioning yeses and nos, let’s go

slow

revolyestionary notion

that behold, this body and soul

that yes welcomes yes embraces yes

the taste of someone who has proven

worthy

of your yes

is worth the questing, slow beckoning

interrogating, interesting, conversating

adventuring yes is ongoing

yes enthusiastic

yes informed

yes free-given

yes the truest test

of sex

the consent of yes is necessary

Ultima Thule

I speak at book festivals

to thousands of teens

and hundreds of brilliant teachers

who clutch 32-ounce cups of coffee

with extra shots of espresso and patience

I tell my stories, burning hot and angry

gentle some truths so the kids can hear them

drop consent bombs they can’t avoid

laugh about the dumb things I’ve done

so they can laugh, too

Over three days, I sign countless books

and listen as girls speak

up about being raped

or molested or shared

or any of the varieties

of sexual violence visited

upon the young and wordless

Greenland is a dependency of Denmark,

if you travel to the far north of Greenland

then a little farther still

you might find the mythic land of Ultima Thule

home to the wind, ice, and lichen old as time

Ultima Thule, my refuge

for when the world gets too real

like when a twelve-year-old tells me

about Mommy’s boyfriend

and the things he made her do

at night

when Mommy worked the late shift

after she wipes her tears on my shoulder

and promises to write

and walks back to her teacher

I whisper

Ultima Thule

empty and cold and holding a place for me

for cryotherapy, for vacuum-sealing myself

in the ice, just for a little while

imagining all the layers of clothes

I’d wear on Ultima Thule

the benign joy of studying polar bear songs

or renegade glaciers

dreaming of the aurora borealis

at the top of the world

and how I could make room

on Ultima Thule for anyone else

who just needs a space safe enough

to breathe, for a little while

like this girl

whose mommy broke up with that boyfriend

but now they have to live in their car

adaptable heart

the names of the charred survivors

who don’t know how fucking tough

they are

nestle

hidden

in the fifth chamber

of my heart.

Their courage warms

me from the inside,

stubborn candles

illuminating

this scorched

pumpkin.

three

my peculiar condition arboreal

After they stole the mountains from the Mohawks

and thrashed the British, my grandfather’s

people tapped sugar maple trees,

generations of us bled maple sap, wearing tamarack

snowshoes, under a late winter moon

spring urges rising, boiling

gallons of sap in iron vats

sold it cheap to neighbors, jacked

the price for outsiders who vacationed

in the woods where my grandfather roamed,

ax and rifle at the ready.

A quiet forest ranger

he taught me how to listen to the pine,

broad oak, woeful elm, sistering beeches,

spruce and fir for Christmas trees

and ironwood for fences

miles of paper birch tattooing memory

on their skin with black walnut ink

he gently pressed my palms

against the bark

so I could feel their whispers.

Ganoderma applanatum

Ganoderma applanatum is a fancy

way of saying the fungus you find

on some trees in the North, a boil,

canker sore, wide as a working man’s hand,

a worry bursting from the hip

of an uprighteous beech

skyside watertight, wind-thick, wood-tough

bird-stained, blight-wrinkled

folding over and over on herself

like a slow-growing mountain

or a hand-forged sword

earthside, underside, dirtside

clean as a patient page

waiting

for a dreamer

to make her mark