{"id":12354,"date":"2018-09-15T10:35:16","date_gmt":"2018-09-15T08:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=12354"},"modified":"2018-09-18T12:53:58","modified_gmt":"2018-09-18T10:53:58","slug":"poems-by-tara-skurtu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=12354","title":{"rendered":"poems by Tara Skurtu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shame<\/strong><\/p>\n

versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103<\/a><\/p>\n

Overnight, someone has epoxied a bright pink dildo<\/p>\n

onto the Virgin Mary outside the Sacred Heart Church.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s Sunday. From the caf\u00e9 window I watch a woman<\/p>\n

cover her son\u2019s eyes and make the Sign of the Cross<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

as they head past the statue\u2019s outstretched arms,<\/p>\n

up the steps. A stranger at a neighboring table says,<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Worse than the time some asshole<\/em> in Hopkinton stole<\/em><\/p>\n

the plastic baby Jesus<\/em> right out of the manger<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I remember that. A sign in red paint: Shame on you<\/p>\n

if you stole Jesus! I saw it on the news at Braintree Station<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

that Christmas eve. The camera panned a field<\/p>\n

of lighted reindeer. Then Mary, palms in prayer at her chest,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and Joseph, on one knee, admiring a basket of snow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Catechism<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Who wants an eternity of cloud-<\/p>\n

to-cloud bouncing, no afternoon<\/p>\n

chocolate chip cookie in sight?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m against dying.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If I were an orange, I would not have<\/p>\n

a very long life, because people<\/p>\n

would eat me. So I don\u2019t want<\/p>\n

to be an orange.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I raise my hand, ask Sister John<\/p>\n

the Baptist, Can you eat cookies <\/em><\/p>\n

in Heaven?<\/em> Turns out, you can\u2019t<\/p>\n

even bake them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And reincarnation means you lose<\/p>\n

all of your bodies to the forever abyss<\/p>\n

of consciousness\u2014so I choose body.<\/p>\n

But in death, let me be<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ash. Let me be scattered illegally<\/p>\n

into the Charles as a riverboat<\/p>\n

emerges from the shadows of<\/p>\n

the Salt-and-Pepper Bridge.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let there be a birthday party<\/p>\n

on that boat, my hungry selves<\/p>\n

swirling in the wind while the song<\/p>\n

is sung and the cake is cut.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To a Barracuda<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Patagonian toothfish has nothing<\/p>\n

on you\u2014I\u2019d eat him up any day.<\/p>\n

That zipper-toothed piranha may share<\/p>\n

your itch for ambush and flesh<\/p>\n

until he meets the mouth of a river<\/p>\n

otter. He\u2019ll settle for an aquarium<\/p>\n

life with the occasional blood<\/p>\n

worm, goldfish. An alligator,<\/p>\n

almost. His dynamo of death roll<\/p>\n

rendered vincible by a soft<\/p>\n

spot in the skull, quarter-sized.<\/p>\n

But you, barracuda\u2014wallflower<\/p>\n

ambusher, solitary scavenger<\/p>\n

of gut scrap\u2014I never expected<\/p>\n

to see you this close. Your sleek steel<\/p>\n

sizing up my gear, the silver gleam<\/p>\n

of a ring. Your razor and dagger<\/p>\n

and needle teeth pointing<\/p>\n

me back to shore.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[all poems from The Amoeba Game<\/em>, Eyewear Publishing]<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shame versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103 Overnight, someone has epoxied a bright pink dildo onto the Virgin Mary outside the Sacred Heart Church.   It\u2019s Sunday. From the caf\u00e9 window I watch a woman cover her son\u2019s eyes and make the Sign of the Cross<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1340,77],"tags":[1342,1123,1355],"class_list":["post-12354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-55","category-english","tag-egophobia-55","tag-english","tag-tara-skurtu"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-3dg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12354"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12355,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12354\/revisions\/12355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}