finegan ferreboeuf

a new translation



i knew you were coming when i saw blisters on my fingers

can we talk about 90210, can we talk about 90210?

he would only be cured by a rosebud; plighted by that pond

i knew when you came by the barking of dogs,

people talk in the library, people talking in the library

so i took to the dictionary, where words in their origins

trampled my maidenhead, my blood from which lilies will grow

tomorrow, i will become Hecate in a mass text,

you came with such pressure, told me you watched

a circle of men take turns with one girl, they all had your face

oh imagine, that poor horse once did such fine somersaults

she screams fire fire! screams of fire, she screams of fire fire!

you knew you had done wrong only when the others told you

you knew it would require compensation and reconciliation

you knew your neck tasted like bing cherries and kids love you

you knew you had already become a hero in fragments

as if this house could make you or i something different

as if my mother had taught me to darn socks or bake madeleines

i knew you were about to come, my lips could feel the tension

i knew i would lie beside band-aids and purple hyacinths, waiting

for the lost to return, chicken bone graves, the stride of an ox

someone might have taken a polaroid, but the film was discontinued

no one buys a latte anymore, no one buys a latte anymore

Rodin just laughed when they said I was prolific, they said

my hair curled just as hers did, they said my eyes are a little farther apart

Rebuff was a horrible monster, Rebuff rebuffed, Rebuff crossed her legs

that pond you stood in to your ankles with your pants down

that dog bite on my forehead, that we couldn’t learn faster

it is all about balls, weights in my palm the sun and the moon

the iris on my backside, i am not searching for my virginity taken

i know where it is on the umpteenth floor, on the balcony,

my bare ass on a brown leather jacket, we all act a fool

i see you come in without the slightest change of face, i see how easy

it is to use the whole pig as if it wasn’t a woman, i see the stars

only when i leave my home, i’ve won so many trophies

i’ve won Sappho in those black girls screaming on the 22

with ipods or daisy chains they circle on the gymnasium floor

staring at the white girl, blank staring at the white girl

please let us dance with scissors, we just want to hold them in our palms.


finegan ferreboeuf is currently a Mills student working on a senior thesis in poetry.