“The Fault Along the Floor” and “White Pocahontas”

The Fault Along the Floor

• The fault along the floor between these molten beds
• which we have made, to unmake, and in which we must
• lie still until the quake has passed us, and a gust
• from unknown quarters brings together our two heads —
• this fault is strange and terrifying as it threads
• along. And I — left in the lurch of it, nonplussed —
• am learning for the first time how to re-adjust,
• and watching in astonishment while havoc spreads.

•  
• I am the virgin gazing down a crack’s abyss
• at suffocated lovers’ dead, abandoned faces.
• This Hollywood phenomenon is wholly new,
• envisioning myself so lifeless, come to this.
• Preposterous, I find myself here, of all places:
• the worst of nightmares that I know — but home, to you.
•  

White Pocahontas

• Their jaws will drop, I know, as in we walk
• and there will be no peace until we leave —
• but life lasts merely moments. Let them talk,
• for later on will come my calm reprieve.
• Their heads will turn, I know, as we walk in.
• The maitre d’ will seat us, while they mumble.
• but beauty will not stay, so let them spin.
• I’ll bow my head, as penitent and humble
• as I know how to be. What they don’t know;
• What, darling, they don’t understand, I do.
• They see me as the redskin, mixed-breed doe,
• though what these wealthy patrons want is you.
• My native name — bizarre to them as Greek —
• these cowboys covet, but they never speak.

Jennifer Reeser is a poet, critic, and a translator of French and Russian literature.

Her most recent book is a novel-in-verse, The Lalaurie Horror (Saint James Infirmary, 2013).