Katie Hill

Katie Hill Aug 2010

August 29th, 2010

The woman is wearing jewels and a smile. She's a woman now
or at least she's pretty sure
it really depends on the day.
History trails behind her, like all the mahogany hair that
isn't there anymore, but was his favorite part. History said
the measure of a woman lies in the worth of her hips
the twist of her lips, or so they said. She sees peridot
out of the corner of her eyes, in shadows and in
handsome faceless strangers. And she figures
she's a woman now; the way she sees her fingers
long and white, gentle lines drawn
on strangers arms
familiar corners
a warm jaw. In memory. In the dark.

In the dark, she nibbles her fingertips
and cherishes the sensation of not
quite
being a proper lady. A woman, yes,
but in this empty bed
but in her mussed up head
with her nibbled, lonely fingertips
not a lady. She closes her eyes and
with a deep breath she imagines space. She imagines
her body
filled with space, her 24 ribs pulled back
like the bows of 24 warriors,
two for each month of a visceral, joyous battle,
though she's not sure she's a warrior anymore. Not
quite
the girl she was with a heavy shield and a blade of
cheery cynicism she treated as friend and lover both.
Not a warrior girl, not anymore,
but a woman full of space, and
a woman playing host to the passing of time.

Katie Hill Aug 2010

Earth I: East

We remember the promise, the oath, the flowing words taken straight from the

serpent's crooked mouth. We knew once the promise of immortality, the miracle of my

skin and yours and it was then that we had the miracle cure for loneliness. We knew

once of love and patience and kindness. We knew once of sun and warmth and peace.

We knew all of this, and it never once took its existence from our healthy pink souls.

Lately, we have been paving our roads in gold. We sing mountain songs to the

resilient soil and murmur our prayers against the air - all along looking for the right way

to cheat god. Shapes and souls move constantly against each other, but we are all alone

in our own thoughts, singular in our skin. This is the threat of knowing, of seeing

clearly, of looking straight into the sun searching for reason. We together (on our own)

bury out cleared eyes in calculations; latitude, longitude and hemispheric paradises. We

are all looking for Eden.

Katie Hill Aug 2010

Corpse II

Body is your ten fingers, ten toes and then growing up and losing/scaring/breaking
           them one by one.

Body is spaceship, underwater capsule, walking love bomb.

Body is here and now and there will never be a way to know its location in the
           future, except that it will be on earth as dust or dirt or skin.

Body is always pretending to be yours, to be acting out commands and working
           towards your master plan but it will always be telling secrets and saying
           things you're not speaking.

Body is gifted, broken and made of more than your soul and proteins.

Body is rhythm and habit even on the most erratic of Sundays, Mondays and through
           the curses of the witching hour.

Body is the integral physical material of an individual. Body is cellular
           as in multiple moving parts, joints and broken mechanics.

Body is often known to be alongside your death, because you will always exist after
           your last fact. Corpse.

Katie Hill Aug 2010

Politics 1

Moving shapes, moving ideas- all consisting of
social relations involving authority
or power. Their minds are
running numbers, counting steps and
every fluctuation of the systems they surround themselves with.
The numbers equate somehow to colors and
somehow to hope and
somehow to the logic of us.
The collective,
the silent moving voice.

Suddenly we are all singing.
We are mourning our dead but
watch us
as we all fight for our futures.
Ours.
Our flat feet meet only concrete but
we reach downwards, call for home,
cry salty tears for the earth that makes us air,
makes us food,
make us love.
We love, and now we rejoice together for hope,
in numbers. In such great numbers.

Katie Hill Aug 2010

Decaprophetic

In ten years I will be chasing twelve fireflies
through the tangled forest. Ten years from now
I will be the wrath of the trees, the walking, moving,
constantly told fable. I will be the local witch,
the woman hiding under the back shed and
eating the hearts and souls of children and
the passion of the young and beautiful; the lovers.
I will be the woman carrying her secrets in a wicker basket
with her bread and cheese and I will be the woman
with a hundred names that nobody knows.

In ten years I will be tending a garden; my knees and
the palms of my hands will be brown and red. I will be
drinking from the river and making prophecies in my sleep.
In ten years I will keep songbirds in cages with no bottom.
I will hang a welcome sign around the scarecrows neck
and I will paint it myself. I will still live alone.

In ten years I will be pulling grey hair from my scalp
and selling it to the man beneath the bridge for the price
of silver. In a matter of weeks I will be questioned
on the value of precious metals and I will tell them
only my name. They will nod. They will let me walk free
again and forget my name. I will not tell them of
the man buried beneath my front step.

In ten years I will notice the absence of the moon for the first time.
I will be standing in the middle of my garden, barefoot.
I will be looking upwards at a wide, whole sky.
I will be found there at dawn.

— The End —