Christine Kanownik
The Donner Party
When they told me what I had
to do to keep on living I promised
to do it all eagerly gulping
whatever was placed in
front of me while
others faced the
wall and allowed for a dignified
and painful death to enter
without hesitation I slashed
away at the newly dead
let a type of night spill
organs cooked over
the fire even going so far
as to rip a hole
in my own flesh to better
consume to house and contain
what sort of life
what sort of life
cry the starving mothers
those delicious miserable women
Doomed dragon food
I am allowed to eat everything, all of you, as long as I
save the bones and pile them on your respective
skins after the meal.
-Ursula Andkjær Olsen
There are ways in which we are served to the machines
like Andromeda to Perseus
an unwilling participant in a story
of medical triumph
my own suffering, a single numeric
value in a poorly designed database
there is obviously a platter
draped in white fabric
breast exposed, hands secured above my head
with admonishments to hold my breath and keep still
with threats of bodily harm
they tell me to always look up and to the right
where their god is, I assume
I am a portrait of penitence or rapture
sexualized and radiated
the others hide while the real work is done
behind heavy doors
my flesh increasingly raw
increasingly appealing to monsters
of all kinds
they ask to photograph my breath or proof
that I do breathe
and each day I expose my various flesh
open my chest cavity
so my tender little lungs can
tremble before that
hideous, invisible beam
to the camera that sighs and squeaks
“Lack of air”
Your thoughts are the smoke of grilling meat
-Kim Hyesoon
All the finest
most exquisite things
taste like heaven
and smell
like
barnyards
the hot outside of the city
the return to the abandoned cabin
the sickly sweet but not sweet
the death but is it really death
the knowledge of death
the man living so long alone
suddenly next to you in the heat
no air circulating
close and close and closer
that damp spot under the house
the poverty that will never allow
never move
never flee
the decay
the dissolution
distended
a month’s bed rest
longer when you fall
lose what you’d hoped for
the smell of the end of hope
only washing the most sensitive and rank places
when you haven’t heard
from her in months
maybe more
you don’t know when last
you’ve heard
anything
the door opens
is forced open
air, the molecules
from one space suddenly
allowed to exchange places
the heavier molecules
falling further
into the already soiled carpet
how many pets did she have
when was the last time you heard her voice
you don’t like this line of questioning
but no one is asking
except for you
every crime
is a crime that you
allowed to happen
every death
perhaps
something to forget
“Dinner menu”
I always find myself cupping my hands
before something that will die in front of me
and become part of my body.
-Kim Hyesoon
Some mothers would
do that—in times of extreme
lack—some would serve their
own body to keep their children
from starvation
I have not known her
but I can imagine her
what greedy filthy children you are
eating your own mother
chewing on fingers and toes
raw and burnt
soon there will be almost
nothing left
no hands left to cook for you
no fingers to hold the knife
and, you, a miserable baby
will just cry and cry and cry
as mommy hacks herself up for you
I—like a mother—empty myself
every evening on to the dinner table
I lay prone and inviting
unable to think of any
more appropriate sacrifice
It was then that I became afraid
of my flesh
people were saying phrases to me
words that contained threats
they did not think I had suffered
enough so they strapped
me to a bench and even the
residents there were ashamed
of my nakedness and pitied me
viciously “I’ve been here
for years,” one allowed
she showed me what she thought
good and bad was, but I
couldn’t tell the difference
(I was no initiate
to the esoteric knowledge
of the heart in peril)
the wires they attached to me
created a tangle
and compared to this
machine, I was a grotesquery
spilling over the wires
uncontained, “if you don’t calm
down, you’ll die”
she said, but I couldn’t
I could only scream and throb
I couldn’t
bring a single ounce of peace
to my sick mind and body
so they brought in more machines
the Mommy machine and the Daddy
machine and all the many Police
and Law and Government machines
who spoke solemn words and locked
me away from the fleshy eyes of man
they carted in a few broken machines
with sharp edges that
gave out wrong numbers
corrupted the incorruptible numbers
just to see what you’ll do
“It’s all there in black and white” they’ll
say making their own sort of faces
the crowd of machines
all rolled forward to look at my
roiling body in disgust their sensors shrill and
angry perhaps it is wrong to think so
and laughed
big electrical laughs
that echoed through the empty hospital
hallways and through the damp
dark marrow of my bones
and so
surrounded by every
machine that ever was
and wasn’t—
I did indeed
die
but my death didn’t stop them
—the Doctor machines
they kept prodding me
the conveyor belt
of electrical medicine
proceeded along nicely
the hums and clicks
and whirls replacing
any sound of my respiration
my big wet human noises
now finally silenced
someone explains
the flesh is never allowed
to rest, even when all the
blood is drained out and the
veins have burst and the
flesh is left, quivering
I leaked
out of my own
gelatinous form
as the incineration
starts to begin
Christine Kanownik is a writer living in Chicago. She has two books of poetry. HEAD (Trembling Pillow Press, 2018) explores the art and literature of decapitation, and King of Pain (Monk Books, 2016) is a lyric meditation on love and trauma. Her work can be found in such places as FENCE, jubilat, and the Huffington Post.