A Small Disunified Theory
We’ve gone pale all over, a capital drain
through which forever is stripped of its or—
manufactured selection reduced to fever.
The fetish of radiant tragedies, handmaidens
dressed in collateral adjectives. Aren’t we
rendered a menagerie? A diluted
zoomorphic palette, our racked bodies, kittens
& rabbits & sunsets & sordid red satin
goddesses. The altar a pedestaled cage. Our hair
feeds the fibrous needs of the heavens. Queens
of miserable. It says all this here, in the doctor’s
script, his terrible cursive. Patriarchy’s bloat
& interlock. Exploit & cramp.
We ailment & scorn. Barely a sign, these
broken hearts, broken bones, broken lungs. Caught
in centuries of wound, ever after
of the world. Its rhythms of subjugation.
The body is simply an extension, a spasm
of the wound. The world. The choral refrain
of experts: it’s all in our heads
in our heads in our heads.
The choral refrain of despots
& hoarders of gain, of gatekeepers &
too many men: it’s all in our heads
in our heads in our heads in our
heads. Let the body speak (of its illnesses, its
dispossessions), declare its stolen. Let the body
say it for you. A crown-to-heel testimony,
inflammatory indeed
Summon the memory, the nebulous
conditions of our devastation. Summon
the acute & chronic aftermath. The throb
& burn of aperture & rift. Drastic shapes
call for what will be deemed drastic measures:
from the outside, orchestral noise abounds.
We know how to handle each other’s
blood. How to butter our bread.
I learn the names of your mothers, you mine.
Study the sounds of your dispossessions,
the pace of your pulse under upheaval,
laughter masking stiff tissue form. I your
& you mine, I your & you mine.
Our wounds, our bodies & their becomings.
A fetal universe in lambent hungers.
A snow early & long in the arms, but here
we are, coruscating against invasion,
vining our way up through it
A mess of aching limbs devoted to the light.
Staggering, isn’t it?
How improbable we are.
This poem’s title, italicized lines, and various words and images are sourced from or riffing on
Leslie Jameson’s 2014 essay, ‘A Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain.’
heidi andrea restrepo rhodes, "A Small Disunified Theory" from Wet Sands: poetry exchanges. Copyright © 2022 by heidi andrea restrepo rhodes. Reprinted by permission of heidi andrea restrepo rhodes.
Source: Wet Sands: poetry exchanges (Libromobile, 2022)