The Future: Fox Henry Frazier
Silver-Eyed Lilínabalén and Adam of the Red Soil Shared the First Pull & Fall of Earthly Promise
By land, I saw his core transformed
in daily toil russet-smudged ordained mortal
scorch iron stains & aches,
known, he said, to man
alone. We soaked in evening glow, orange orb dipping
past horizon. Lowering home. Night would rinse him
clean, my adamantine
pearl we floated the gloaming
border where water osculates
earth my every silver
layer open to his gaze feeling even
then his unborn sons growing
up to pen my fluid
hematite glow as the very
first blasphemy. What knowledge
drilled itself inside my psyche as a worm
invades the oyster’s shell & I
held it as the mollusk keeps
& coats the criminal
in sequent layers
of iridescent nacre. But I
melted in his grip—let myself
become the fluid
silver that he struck in heat, hammered
to what he could smelt & own & none
of this hurt as you might
divine: I was filigree
beneath his fingers, his face
spangled in my sterling
splatter. I laughed,
my body
calescent
star memory. Brighter
than any known pain.
Silver-Eyed Lilínabalén Learns That Adam’s Father Has Prohibited Her Body
Before surface-dwellers had time to construct their manjasang and vampyr. Before even
wearh transgressor was what he called me criminal blood-smeared unclean
woman who has lost her way. My kind understands killing
as lavish human extravagance a violence irrelevant to survival.
My kind: what his sons would elect to fracture into daywalker
siren succubus. But this is what men do for
the women they love. This is what men do for the they
This is what men do
mark themselves by sun & will & flint & measure what
world we might have shared by first one finger & then another together curling the hand
to thickened ball of bone. He was the first of his kind
or he was not. No matter. He would make all of his sons in his own image.
Silver-Eyed Lilínabalén Places a Curse Upon Adam in Retribution
Constellation of insects undulating like a blue-
ringed octopus shall embed themselves in your
scalp & vent their miserable poison. Your forehead
will peel like seaweed left in the sun. Eyelids flake
away, nasal flesh raised in desperate boils.
Tears turn to ash and gravel in your ducts.
Water shall pass your lips as
silt the freshest spring taste
like the death of your mother.
And you shall swallow. Spit in your mouth
turn rancid citrus on your tongue, hard
palate erupt in pustules, throat swell swathed
in slime and you shall swallow.
Your chest pull inward, brackish marsh consuming
itself again & again. Your entrails
pickle in your belly from the spirits you
distill & drink: fruits from the labor
for which your hide will sizzle, cauterize
daily in the sun. Your man-made
renderings will course calcine
through you like a demon: eradicate
mind & turn body savage, pass
like thick urine against open sores.
The bread for which you toil will
taste as if drenched in moon-
time blood from the woman you once called witch as you tried to
outlaw her body, worm
that you are in the mouth
of God. And you
shall swallow
that blood-soaked yeast, know it
as your only unpolluted fluid. And your body
shall ruin that as well. Rivers infest your skin
with algae and infection. You: a living
gangrene, your groin growing verdant
your dank rot repel even the most estrus-
driven succubus from beneath your favorite
garden tree. Your skin rise like sordid apple
blossoms purple-grey tumors foresting
your useless thighs. Your knees will host
fire-ant colonies until they crack
bloodless, your shins shatter backwards,
bone & blood through tender calf skin.
Scorpions of your red earth set upon your
tendons until you hallucinate your halluces
hacked from you, one hot strand of muscle
at a time shredded through. Bamboo slivers
razor between finger skin and nail, bloodied
digits then dipped in the cruelest salt
any ocean has to offer. And the ocean—ah, my
ocean—shall claim every person you have
ever loved. Until you gouge your insect-infested
scalp from its skull, weeping, and walk
into my depths, drop yourself breathless
where my body is sovereign, your final night
tossing alone among storm and foam, torn by orca
which your sons after you will
come to write as killer whales—
Fox Henry Frazier is a poet and essayist whose books include Weeping in the Tropical Moonlit Night Because Nobody’s Told Her (Yes Poetry, 2022), Raven King (Yes Poetry, 2021), and The Hydromantic Histories (Bright Hill Press, 2015). Fox holds an MFA from Columbia University and a PhD from the University of Southern California, where she was also a Provost’s Fellow. She created and co-manages the indie press Agape Editions, the literary & arts magazine Alice Says Go Fuck Yourself, and the Favorite Poems reading series. She lives in upstate NY with her daughter, her dogs, her gardens, and her ghosts.
Image: australiangeographic.com.au
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