by Rowan Eager

I am boiling black oceans
squeezed in a jacket.
All my mirrors are papered over
So as they won’t pop.

When in the dark, I undress,
To the sound of giggling mannequins,
And feel my naked thighs
Like curving planets, I wonder:

Is this Eve resurrected?
The very heathen mother
That bumbled through Congo bracken,
Like a gasping heifer,

Sweaty hair drenched over the hump of her back.
Apron-belly brightly streaked
Like ripe red gourds,
On the deadly tree of life.

Is this the glory of flabby, aborigine Vixens
Of ancient Australia?
Who white men hoard
As freak curios?

A hated abundance
I’d rather claw off like clay.
Wild flesh of my savage mothers,
Why can’t you behave?