From “Land of Eroded Womb”
***
what else lies
in this ruin —
i birthed
oscillating
nothingness
from my
second self
who carries
the deluge
& asks
for complete
erasure —
***
on a granite
crucifix
found in
the lawn
of a cremated
cathedral
i etched
her name
with the
knife
i held
where milk
once flowed —
***
enclosed center —
porous drain —
ancient stars
lose their
light
& loss is
pulsion—
choral
chest
buried
under
stones
& finally
nothing
at all—
***
walking
backward
marshes
starve
under
sanded
tombs —
i wake to
what is this
accidental
aqueduct
valley
ravine —
glass city—
wrought iron
lungs sewn
shut —
***
skin my
sleepless
ghosts
holding
the knife
to my center
who will clean me
& come ripping
the aorta
out & resew
split
roads
of failed
womb
where i lie
prone —
Green Fields
***
in which shape
is my body
hyperrealistic
not knowing
where to look
how
excessive
am i
exposed
like this
cathedral’s
plumage
thickly
sown.
to walk over
water
i must be
absent
from
dimensionality —
parenthetical
harbor —
birds rustle
safely
in pear trees —
within a series
of buildings
& a single
geography
there lies
a closure
not meant
to be read
not entirely.
Riverbend
***
from the 9th floor window
we unburdened the room’s
hypoxia
onto barges floating
viscously along
the crescent,
anemic
& sunken
abdominal
land became
Gulf & algae
as we looked to
vast blue
for an answer
to the death
we tried
to medicate
dredging faith
to prevent further
flooding
what arises
here
white flowers
emerge on stalks
in dead cypress
forests
nothing can be done
lungs effuse
& pogonia trembles
below screaming
brother
into the phone
& open water,
skyline, lung,
salt water intruding
estuaries & river
reaching wetlands
we drank the
flooding from runoff
said
do not resuscitate
when
i was still holding
her hand
Author Statement
Language fails.
My work has always been interested in failure.
I break open language to process my own losses: that of my home, New Orleans, following Hurricane Katrina; that of Louisiana, due to coastal erosion and the failure of the state; that of my mother. My body remembers grief and trauma. My text is a projection of this lacerated body. I subject my work to depression.
I hope to shape language around the void, to map slippages between impulses, to ask the reader to investigate what’s missing. This inclines me to the divine – the inexplicable.
We do not have language for this.
Isabel Balée was born and raised in New Orleans and has roots in Belém do Pará, Brazil. Her work is forthcoming in Cosmonauts Avenue, Ghost Proposal, and Littletell. You can find her at ibalee.tumblr.com