Cibola 76

This entry is part 75 of 119 in the series Cibola

 

Esteban (4) (cont’d)

While the woman stretches curious fingers
toward the beard, the wondrous hair
like gourdvine runners trailing
down his back
& the dizzying sheen, until
they alight upon a point of interest
precisely where any woman’s gaze
would tend to end up. She gives
a strange cry. Esteban smiles
to himself, knowing she’s never
seen a circumcised penis–
purified of its female covering
as God intends: a covenant
through which this imperfect Nature
can be completed, redeemed–

but she recoils, eyes narrowing,
making the signs
for Earth / Sacrifice / Taboo.
–What? She thinks
I’m a sacrificial victim who managed
to escape?
Then with curled lip
extending her arms out straight
she claps her wrists together–
Slave–the half-clenched
fingers forming
an inadvertent heart.

No–right palm across his face,
shouting Hay una carta,
aquí­,
clutching where the brass
locket would hang on his shirt,
the hand language failing
as his vision clouds &
he lunges, clasping a forearm,
reaching for her hair.
But she twists
unexpectedly inward,
against him, plants her teeth around
a neck tendon, moaning
low in her throat in a burlesque
of pleasure, raking his back
& side with her nails while
he writhes, howling, until
she finally releases him

& he leaps back, loses
his footing, falls.

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