Claire Hero

FROM HUNTRESS

MAMMALED, TEAT

WEE CANOE

FROM HUNTRESS to heifer, Crackbone,

I have changed. I’ve become

what you spurn: some tame

meat, a teat. Stranded I am

inside her helix, her gene a door

I slipped through, her flank

a window onto another—.

I make of her a home.

& what will you do—drive me

off, gadfly?

What next will I become?

This white sustenance –

Change – I offer you,

fruit of my dug & clover.

MAMMALED, TEAT-tethered

to hunger, to heat beating

its bloodnoise

through cellwalls

of tomorrow’s marrow,

we farrow, feral-

lettered, a future:

thin thing, re-

vealed,

all knee & milkteeth

Milkcent

Milkcentury--

WEE CANOE

Where’s the key for this hole?

I’ve been searching the far corners.

My palfrey’s out promenading

before winter’s pagodas.

Where’s the seem for my eye?

Mélange of sleeze & hoopla.

It’s a lot to see the Snow Lassies

perform their little frigidaires.

Now we can fix the lightbulb.

The filament, imaginary paddle.

My eye, wee canoe, déjà vu.

Like the seven identical suits

of Einstein, the destination

remains unchanged. But O!

the voyage, the voyager.