3 Poems

[exorcism and purificatory rituals]*

Look through the mesh — today the sky is white.  Nine signifies judgement day in Islamic Number Theory. Rain yesterday; we imagined the drops cold, hard, sometimes soft.  The green was throbbing.  Shadows, green shadows. Stage left is the audience’s right, known as house right. Erase the tapes and pretend you didn’t. Dark sticks and wet soil. Tiny leaves, like green feathers. You used to gush like a wound, like a wet woman.

 *The title is taken from an article, “Women and Hysteria in the History of Mental Health” by Tasca, et al., which explores what were thought to be the best treatments for what was called Hysteria in women.

[a loss of speech but not of singing]*

This kind of jacket, smudged grey, with twenty-five buckles and flaps.  Select something like a sign that has clear, sharp lines. Nurses show you how to fly through the window. Use the butterfly house as you would a hollow tree. Once I undressed you outside in the snow, under the tree until you shook, your teeth clacking like tea cups on a clothesline. But your cheeks bloomed red.  Oh, they bloomed and swelled. What “containment” means in Dutch. When your knees eventually buckle, your green breath drifts to my cheek. 

*The title is taken from an article, “Women and Hysteria in the History of Mental Health” by Tasca, et al., which explores what were thought to be the symptoms of what was called Hysteria in women.

[such as girl schools, convents and factories]*

They hand you this figure, that one.  At no point may your sticky hands leave the sleeves.  Watch your head. At no point should you shout his name.  Reek of Lysol, bleach, boiled oats and new beige paint where the old woman slammed her head. When you have a feeling – either a red satellite above the pines or something clawing, turning, in your right side. Downstage refers to the area closest to the audience. Slammed her head. As they take the photo, they tell you to hold the doll closer, right to your face.

*The title is taken from an article, “Women and Hysteria In The History Of Mental Health” by Tasca, et al., which explores what were thought to be the causes of what was called Hysteria in women.