I went into her breast. I heard her muffled voice,
from outside, curl. And flesh-fabric, waves passed
through it without glistening, without any
beautification. I went into that mammary darkness, saw
four pearls warbling in her eyes. Hazel liquid and
black flesh eyes. The diamond scales of her tongue,
diamond alligator-skin, wearing purple
jangle-bracelets and a red chiffon dress. White rump
up in air. Clean air slithering in. Air of Jerusalem
after a suicide explosion. A girl did it. A pale-faced
Christian girl, seventeen. Virgin, dispossessed.
Limestone home razed by IDF in Jenin. Site of
massacring. Stomach-sickening photographs we took. I
took so many. I vomited so much. Faces caved in,
melted mass of guts drooling out burst mutilated
torsos. Mess of bellies, bones. A wrinkled photo of
Sitting Bull. A stray Arab breast. I went into it.
Scaly brown nipple, trampled, weeping bladder,
Viscera - I'm making myself sick again. I rule out
divine intervention. I hate the thought. Wants to gut
*us*. Puppetize souls. The sadness of your face in
photographs, Sitting Bull, will have to be emblazoned
on someone else's heart. The old fantasy of ecstasy in
deathbed. Not mine. No, ma'am, God, hungry bitch.
Better than clasping them in prayer tonight, my hands
move up Mablula's blouse and down her ruffled mint
green skirt, licking her new tattoo. An image smeared
with olive oil to medicate it, Arab balm remedy. The
tattoo is a black and red image, someone's face. Dead
Indian, dead Arab. I lick the dead face. Olive oil
rampaging back into my Arab soul. And her tongue still
with diamond alligator scales lashing the air. I tell
her to put her tongue back in her dark mouth. I put
mine back in mine and (all the gems of Araby) finally
stop talking.