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Toti O’Brien is the Italian Accordionist with the Irish Last Name. She is the author of Other Maidens (BlazeVOX, 2020), An Alphabet of Birds (Moonrise, 2020), In Her Terms (Cholla Needles, 2021), Pages of a Broken Diary (Pski’s Porch, 2022).
HEROIN
And the closet where she would be shut to be
in total darkness and—like Galileo in the tower
—meditate on her sins.
And the sin that caused the punishment
was the same, each time—daring rebellion
against some perceived abuse.
The result was the closet—a radical form of
reclusion meant to weaken her hubris by sensorial
starving. So to speak. Soon, the darkness
that first, paradoxically, had blinded her, filled
itself with glare like will o’ wisps in a swamp,
like the halos of wandering ghosts.
In the closet, she didn’t repent. She calmed
down, her rage like a motor that—unplugged
from her counterpart, her opponent—slowly,
slowly, lost speed. The engine that had put her
on fire hushed itself, melting with the very
beat of her heart.
And her brain, which had wound itself into
tiny loops of obsession, chewing onto the meager
bone of some right and wrong, some vague claim
of justice, finally went numb, lulled by its own
bitter song. Time vanished in the closet,
as space did.
Only her aching body, only her bruised soul
remained. Of release, she recalled nothing.
When was the door unlocked. If she heard
the key turn. If she dared trying the knob. If
the light outside made her blink, if she first
had to pee or looked for a kerchief, for water.
If she smelled dinner, and the smell suddenly
comforted her. If food made her forget.
SHADOWS OF FIRE
Venus rose from the sea, they said. Of course, naked.
Long, curled hair, echoing the rippling of waves.
Perhaps, she had a mermaid tail (mythologies melt).
Like the Lady of Guadalupe, she stood on a crescent
(hers was abalone). Like that Mary, she niched in a
sort of vulva lined with mother of pearl, and was
haloed by cool layers of blue.
Athena rose dressed from the head (the brain) of her
father, Jupiter, king of gods. Dressed means with spear,
shield, armor—and clothes, underneath. Shoes were
on her feet. She looks marble in sculptures, but she
was splattered in blood, at least from the ax blow
that split open her father’s skull. She did not wash.
No need. She was bound to war.
When she stepped out of the mess of gray matter,
she marched on. She didn’t turn back, oblivious
already of the place she had come from. Soon
she was on horseback, and they called her Joan
the Maid. She donned a red tunic under the chain
mail, waved a red flag, her mount was harnessed
red—all preluding to her firing farewell.
She was seen afterwards, still in scarlet tunic,
playing Malinche. She spoke many tongues, and
too well. She went on, always marching westward
like a sun vainly looking for its resting place,
fated to constantly resurrect. They say she never
met her half-sister, the azure goddess,
or the pious mother of Christ.
She was not invited to family parties. Fairies missed
her baptism. No aunt demonstrated how to make
apple pie. She knew not the flavor of milk. At night,
she drank straight from the bottle as she leaned against
the iron rail of some bridge, listening to the roar of
water smashing on stone, catching (out of the corner
of her wide open eye) a meteor falling.
