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or you'll die from your own weakness and fear. Leave, she said. And don't go grieving for your mother. She hated herself.
    After she had thrown me out, I hurled myself in the sand at her, yelling, I hate you, I'm not just weak, there are other things, why can't you see me, I hate you.
    Then, after a time, my heart closed, sewed itself beautifully: the work of silkworms. After all, I was young, and my body worked flawlessly. My body was perfect and perfectly self-contained. Then, I stopped howling for her each night. Then, I never dreamed of her again.
    But I blamed her for bringing me where I never wanted to go; I woke up one day and I was already formed; it was too late; I was a child belonging to my mother; I wanted that my blood would reverse, return to her, but it was much too late. You, flagrant murderer, were already there reminding me of this, blowing a great heaving wind into my mouth, exploding my sinuses and nose from the inside, bursting my cochlea, my eardrums; you entered my eyes with your fingers; I licked your wrist weakly as you delivered to me your heavenly guerilla blows, and I fainted repeatedly, my creature so absolutely alive, my joy; it was always your astute sense of courtesy, your sensitivity, to wait just long enough before resuming your protracted attacks so I could remember who I was, my offending terror, my dearest; I fall this instant, hearing your execrable insults, my ecstasy a monsoon.
    In your night dreams, twisted sibling, you are dog, orangutan, starving for my blows, begging for my bite. I act on anger, calculation, and impulse; I tear into you with pain and no warning. You want this; your body splits into fragments of mirror, making you multitudes, unmaking you into many, each hurting distinctly; you become a fly's eye, perceiving the world not in waves of light but in throbs of pain. Throughout, I am starving, my dear, then gorged on your blood, my body ceaselessly moving in relation to your ignorant violence.
    This year, the papers say that the national economy is strong, and that there are more high-paying jobs than ever; I am advocate of, accomplice to our nightmare, constantly desiring our wretched delight, unearthing each day some new timbre of agony, employing again and again the few mechanisms I know; you drop your head and seize my body, darling, groaning, fisting my throat, my esophagus, seeking a hemorrhage; light from the window seeps to my eyes as I gag; I wet your arm and bite, scrape it with my canines; I reach and twist at your genitals until tears pool in your eyes and spill; my tubes have burst, your arm stuffs me, your fingers jab at the valve of my stomach; my acid burns you, and you will blister, fester, dearest child; I have lost my body; my body is thin, a mere membrane; I am too thin for organs, then suddenly I balloon; I am hugeous; my body fills the room, the odorous corner I now see before me, darling, the corner I believe is part of you. This cannot continue; it's too much, but it will only continue, my dearest, and if outrage and ecstasy were happiness, it would be mine to give you, in unstoppable proportions. But I can only look at you, my horror, hellcat, hideous queen: I am certain that once, in the past, we met; I am not certain we ever did.
     

FRAISE, MENTHE,
ET POIVRE 1978

Jared Hohl

    NOW THAT WE'RE starving again, all of our stories are about food. Lionel likes to talk about the time he found a cheese cave and cut into one of the wheels with a pocketknife, then shoved his face in there and ate until his lips touched the rind. I tell him about Jake and Walt's diner in Ft. Madison, Iowa, how the tenderloins there were as big as a Frisbee. We don't speak of sweet-tasting things because we've been living off vintage fruit preserves for many months now and the thought of anything sugary makes us want to vomit. We're down to our last jar of jam and I tremble for protein I will never get and some mornings, after I wake up, I keep my eyes shut and my breath