REBECCA COOK
What the Hammer Said When the Hammer Hit the Girl
GOD BLESS THE HOUSE THE BARE BONES the wheels cogs and winds of my head. God bless its want of salve, of oil, please, Daddy come with your greasy pen and circle the places where the water rushes in. God bless the bouncing bough, the high and the low. God bless the storm that breaks and breaks and burns me now. God bless the little covered-up scabbed- over scarred places in my chest in my belly in my scalp, yes, one little word and the pus rushes out. God bless the years and God bless the funny how funny! how many times before last night and the day before the week before or was it two the men entered the lock again and opened the gates again it is flooding again it is sucking her down and spitting her up on the whale’s happy so happy spout one should not cannot argue with the wonder that pops up that splashes out. One would never trade the words yes the crazy yes the pain yes the thing that has eroded her and chiseled her out the great canyon of her mouth what a throat what a song on her birthday her longtime friend sat and listened and said I didn’t know, how did I never know that you could sing like that?
God bless the wrists that sit listening waiting the body still dreaming curled inside the watery sac perhaps it was my mother who wanted first to blot to wrench to cut me up and pull me out. God bless the belly grown fat such a comfort to keep the watchers out the men the stares the cunt oh my the red hot ass the please don’t touch it please not yet she’s only a girl she’s only a stick with a slit she is not ready to lay herself down not ready to open she can’t stop shaking she can’t stop undoing undoing herself now.
Ask God about the closet the chinks between the boards in the floor the old chenille robe that hung itself there. Ask God about the hairbrush how satisfying a banging the bone is bruised but not enough not black not blue not really it seems in movies in dreams in scenes where she’s the star they must call in a knife to play that part what will slice her will twain the thing what her brother said part of me is a man and the other half is a woman I am split. He wasn’t queer just schizophrenic just afraid of them crawling in the windows so high up their tiny ladders yes, yes and yes our mother has poisoned the soup and the soap, in our kitchen, in every store. You are right, so right, it wasn’t only me she trussed up and tossed about.
Ask God what the hammer said the day the hammer spoke to the girl ask him how a hammer is full of mothers full of fathers full of girls impossible pink-skinned bony-kneed thirty-seven pound girls ask God how deep a bruise can go she has it now a polaroid to mark the date the day she de-nailed the boards and brought the hammer down and down always the left wrist it must mean something its attraction its bliss it never hurts not even a little the scissors the nail file the office key but she is lucky so lucky to know that when the big knife comes out and she sees it in her hand and she hears herself saying things that she may or not be saying not her words did she say that was it me did she mean he raped me he raped me I cannot shovel him out? Yes, God made her lucky enough to know when she’s ripe enough to scream to cry to get on the horn please, please come before it happens before this time when I may I may I think I. Well. No. No one who knows her would ever believe that. Such a self-centered tart would never take herself out.
Ask God about her dirt-spotted spit-soaked legs what a marvelous animal you are, you are one of Jacob’s goats fucked clean through complete beside the spotted branches logs moss-covered, we gathered them. Back then, so far back, when her brother was well enough to see enough and strong enough with brain left enough to build houses for us in the thicket to build a platform between four pines so I could sit there better than a house no don’t finish it please don’t tear it down there is magic up here oh my, can you imagine it now? That she could even begin to hoist herself up to such a place, that she could ever jump so high such a spotted calf a cat across the yard. Ask God how she got here this massive body clogged with phlegm brain-soaked wet too old to ever push the baby out what it wants to be born again to be spanked again to take its first breath again.
God bless God for his finger that poked into the sponge that shoved this electric grid inside my head. Bless you, Father, for tying me in to this hot hot chair. I was made with a fat ass so handy in these times of blazing seats of burning hairs. Bless you, Father, bring the crown and screw it down. Thank you, blessed be you who has come to take me now, to plug me in. I will melt I will liquid I will silver molten so precious so perfect a bird they will all hear her singing now they will all watch her leaping lookie lookie me bless you God for your shadow you snapped it on first thing before I inhaled before I had the voice. Blessed be the girl that comes that flows into your house into your bulbs and coils and circuit boards. Blessed be music and blessed be pain, all this pain, not for nothing, all these years. This is the greatest thing this is to leave the world how perfect how elegant this one last dance across the lawn one last swing of the old tire one last push oh mother I’m so high I’m so high God has given me wings. I am going now.
Do not pray for me. Do not sorrow or furrow or winnow me out. I am most high and blessed and I did this, all these things, all this rolling and lying about on up down across this boiling plain this bubbling up and thrice-boiled brain. I am needed elsewhere. I have walked too close to God and he has charred me made a paste of me made a mouthful of water and spat it onto me. And look! What children will come. What little gods are born with my song on their tongues!
Rebecca Cook Writes. Writes words loves words loves the breath in and out in and out. Listen. Is weary of labels. Poems, yes. Lyrics, yes. Fiction, yes. Novels, yes. Essays, yes. Sometimes a thing that rhymes with another thing that isn’t interested. Sometimes a blog post turns into an essay often, yes, too often. Annoying. Delighted. Come, let’s share a biscuit.
