by Rochelle Owens
I
There was once a woman from Tibet
who paid the rent and electric bill
flaying carcasses in the Market Place
Bones of a bird’s wing
hinged together
The pants she wore
were made of burlap and silk
and the edges were frayed
Bones of a bird’s wing
hinged together
Watching the woman from Tibet
earn her living was as good as any
blood sport
Bones of a bird’s wing
hinged together
Hidden in the pockets of her pants
were four lapis lazuli rings
tied together with a string
Bones of a bird’s wing
hinged together
Work is a binding obligation—
You must flay carcasses
in the Market Place
Bones of a bird’s wing
hinged together
Living in the fiction of her glass eye
the gouged out one of the past
the woman from Tibet flays carcasses
Bones of a bird’s wing
hinged together
II
Words from bones the woman from Tibet
her hard skeleton her animal soul
pouring into your blood
Tibetan words words moving up and down
felt in your spine your fibrous substance
Moving her lips
the woman from Tibet
standing in front of a camera
in the fiction of its glass eye
living in the fiction
the gouged out one of the past
Work is a binding
obligation—
You must flay carcasses
in the Market Place
as good as any blood sport
rows of birds rows of knives
FLESH becomes WORD through your teeth
your eyebrows through your skull
your brain your nasal bones
in your muscles
Moving her lips
words in Tibetan spiraling etching
onto your corneas
turquoise glass lapis lazuli words
embedded into the knives
the blades vibrating
circling white lights circling
through your auditory canal
felt on the palms of your hands
soles of your feet
through your heart
The woman from Tibet
standing in front of a camera
in the fiction of its glass eye
living in the fiction
the gouged out one of the past
Work is a binding
obligation—
You must flay carcasses
in the Market Place
Rochelle Owens is the author of eighteen books of poetry and plays, the most recent of which are Plays by Rochelle Owens (Broadway Play Publishing, 2000) and Luca, Discourse on Life and Death (Junction Press, 2001). A pioneer in the experimental off-Broadway theatre movement and an internationally known innovative poet, she has received Village Voice Obie awards and honors from the New York Drama Critics Circle. Her plays have been presented worldwide and in festivals in Edinburgh, Avignon, Paris, and Berlin. Her play Futz, which is considered a classic of the American avant-garde theatre, was produced by Ellen Stewart at LaMama, directed by Tom O’Horgan and performed by the LaMama Troupe in 1967, and was made into a film in 1969. A French language production of Three Front was produced by France-Culture and broadcast on Radio France. She has been a participant in the Festival Franco-Anglais de Poésie, and has translated Liliane Atlan’s novel Les passants, The Passersby (Henry Holt, 1989). She has held fellowships from the NEA, Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and numerous other foundations. She has taught at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Oklahoma and held residencies at Brown and Southwestern Louisiana State.
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