Self Portrait

by Leonora Simonovis

When are you from?

        It begins with broken hipbones, a downy head

        leaning out of a fissure into light.

What is your gender?

        The remains of something once contained,

        bent into unthinkable shapes the color

        of silted sand.

How do you language?

        To reach and touch the sound of another

        the tongue coils and uncoils, rolls, sways,

        humps.

Why are you here?

        Absence a ripe, fleshy plum. My teeth tear into it,

        mimicking Aztec warriors who bit into the hearts

        of their enemies to take away their power.

What is your calling?

        To watch a star billions of years old as midnight

        bleeds into dawn, to love every single creature

        in this world.

What stories live within you?

        Women who carry the desert in them,

        all sand and dry wind. They dammed

        their waters to stop themselves from dreaming.

What is your voice made of?

        Under a waterfall,

        I dare the gods

        to unmake me.