Persona Poem

Building a Self 

Building a self is not easy-I’ve spent

years hidden in this skin, willfully shrunken my heart down to

bite-size, 

drained myself empty, like a deer

hanging from a hunter’s tree. 

Building a self is not easy, but today I’ll try 

to carve me a

spine made of the ghosts of ancestors 

schtetls somewhere in Russia, pogroms, 

Fiddler on the Roof, a difficult picture in my mind

to place, a place without any pictures, 

(told of graves knocked down, 

there’s no going back, there’s only here) 

make me thighs like the soft loaves of fresh-baked bread 

I’ve stuffed myself with, then regurgitated, 

lines of scars running across them, 

bright red rivers I’ve sailed down

(never spent much time on a real river)

string my voice box solid, a voice like tree-trunks

easy speaking, easy to listen to, easy to respect. 

mine my eyes from mountainsides, 

make me something 

precious, and worthy, and rare, 

tie all these parts 

together with twine and string them up 

and make the body move and

make this woman whole, 

animated with the breath of life,

I pick her up

and tell her breathe!