(as told to me by a student in my college Spanish
class
who came back from the front)
Howls in the furnace
is it not Janis Joplin?
these are not concerts for suicidal dolls
save yourself
A year in Iraq is not a long time
myJosanna, my breath, its fragrance of bamboo
I would seize Josanna Jeffrey
for more time in your arms
the narrow wetlands of Mesopotamia
Josanna Jeffrey with her silken legs
luxurious black mittens
a sacred Ibis, she remains
in my sight
My fear of a tattoo’s venom
in the mind of the Stormfront cavalry
lying in wait
Josanna Jeffrey my keeper with glittering braids
more beautiful than Central Park in winter
tattooed with saffron
by Christo
Nineveh’s night under her helmet
you’ll need the nail clippings
you leave on my bed
may the sky of Iraq protect you
the sky of Iraq to spring from your branch
just in time
in friendly fire
an armed Klansman on the Internet
cares for the chamomile of his Aryan scalp
when unnoticed
the gutted dead with dark hair
flee from his account
I sense the venom of her rite burn by low flame
She turns
Leaps
Josanna Jeffrey
You are dark you are a heaven for kings
queen of Baghdad my lover from the Bronx
rustling of reeds eyes flaring as light breaks
Josanna Jeffrey fires first
come over
I love her priceless kidneys
lost
to the Basra experiment
hot days my tongue thrashing between your legs
by a screen saver
frigid
like Mosul’s burn
Bamboo cracked open on the air
your breath of violets of menstruation
Josanna Jeffrey
lost interest in pharmaceuticals
Your kidneys for thirty thousand dollars
your violets
nothing
bound to the screen saver
as in a womb
rests in me
I lick the inked arrow at my heart
I let you suck
all the pornography we have made
to bring all the fragile heavens
to safety
loved flesh now decaying
scattered over the dust of 10,000 archeological sites
violet essence
used just once
to draw
three drops of oil
that animal
set loose in the novice’s book
one of my toes
in your slit of bamboo
how you liked it
she said she’d come back and give birth to a daughter
Nasiriya
the birds never flew back either
to keep you I play
my hand Josanna Jeffrey:
once upon a time the lovers
were lost
to friendly fire in
each other’s war
the survivors the blissful wretched girls
devastated sent back by kings dead a year later
howls in the furnace
you withdraw your head
like a golden turkey
that has yet to be
pricked
with neither shame nor glory
you do not come
the last match
is saved for the darkness
© Dinapiera Di Donato
COLATERALES/COLLATERAL. Akashic Books, New York, 2013.
(pp:
45-51)
Translation from Spanish by Ricardo Alberto Maldonado