On Stephanie Ann Lopez's "Harshlands"

At Artinformal [277 Connecticut St, Greenhills East Mandaluyong City, Philippines (632) 7258518 or +639188992698] until October 27 2010

In Harshlands

I am in Stefania's house and it is white and gray--- steel wires--- is this now the heart?

Is this what we have become?

The wired frog---skeletal---The anger in our hearts.

The hollow, numb, becomes untitled--- This mirror smeared with what may be come or discharge from our webs---- Crawling spiders--- Our wombs---

And an unfinished white dress for an imaginary daughter---

What do we crochet white for? A white home--- Peace---In plaster and barren

I move to--- For those we have forgotten--- A tomb on the wall, nameless plaque,

Except a cherub with wings of bats, dead flowers under to remember.

I step back--- To the numb(ness)---The cemented child holding the wilted flower

(A child remembering the unforgotten daughter), the spider under.

To the left---Look---It is Bacchae, scattered skeleton moving to be one, each part a heart, from each heart this whole moving to be whole, parts

I walk--- And see "Palahian"--- Have we simply become pigs in pens?

Is that how we see our wombs?

Move a little bit more--- And I see the oblivious---In love---Yet

These wires that make and give and take two bodies...Why then

Is the woman always holding and reaching the man invisibly pushing

As explaining, whether to stay or go, here and there and there...

And so women in different states of brokenness; To be sitting, head bowed, that hand

Bereft; Now crouching to stand or perhaps pausing to breathe against

Her heart become steel wires; And falling, curling, unto her womb to embrace

Herself--- No tears but can you see the weeping? Don't you hear? And

Then backwards to forwards---

Tell it to the moon---The Tree of steel bearing fruits of all these little girls weeping

Tell it to the moon---The moon listens, The moon is your

Friend, The moon is you; It is a dream

Like this tree in the middle--- That leads to anywhere but here---Not

For Jack, But Jackie or Jill--- Where is anywhere from a tree, this barren steel stalk?

To return to Teddy--- Three Teddy's in a spin---Gouged, cast, glass--- This hardened

Unto a shell that tells you unwelcome---

Our womb,

This vagina,

Our heart growing thorns of glass---

And to the stairs--- To climb, to depart--- Private---

And I see Stefania looking at it----What do you see in what you kept

Private?

Look, look, through rose-colored glasses--- The ordinary that you don't see

Unless you enter the harshlands.