Critics Page
Oracle, or, Utopia
They sought to erase from my face
all evidence
that I had lived
They used needles to do it. Extraction methods and plumping.
Ocean makes a slurry sound behind my head
a o sound
It was silent as the atoms were gathering
Then it got noisy
Sound made the ocean make sound &
We found history on the Earth’s wrinkled face
*
seen a woman who rhymed with time
does her decay
does her primordial radionuclide dress
and its disintegrating daughters
do time
*
when you peel off your dead skin to see the face of the world
the already-dead go deathly pale
self is a god we walked through I was an idiot It was a mistake
I believe something here
What self?
I do not believe the man-made sky
I think like a hero
I think like a dog
I was looking for the real sky
I want more face, more mother
more atoms moving through the heart
Get ready
I am taking man back for woman, mankind
Contributor
Eleni SikelianosELENI SIKELIANOS is the author, most recently, of You Animal Machine (The Golden Creek), a hybrid memoir, and The Loving Detail of the Living and Dead, poetry, both published by Coffee House Press. She has taught poetry in public schools, homeless shelters, and prisons, and currently teaches at the University of Denver.