Poetry Suite by Zoe Canner
“my body
is under attack”
Poetry by Zoe Canner
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my body is a temple
my body is a charleston
church. my body is a
pittsburgh synagogue.
my body is an oak creek
sikh temple / mistaken
for a mosque. my body
is under attack. from
the inside. please stop
killing the souls. inside
my only house.
i don't know how many
temple blows this
body can endure
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spring baby
for Mireille Knoll
the best passovers happened when the magnolia tree in the yard was full
bloom to welcome our many guests. the beauty arresting and short-lived,
a once a year, couple days' event, just like our legendary seders –
a miracle when they overlapped.
the whole tree always burst into bloom at once. and the very
next day the buds would begin their drooping, weighing
down the branches and then papering the yard everywhere.
but it was the softly sweet, somehow gravity-challenging fragrance,
hanging in the newly humid air like fine musk, and the feel
of the many silky slippery petals against the winter-raw skin of my bare
feet and face and shoulders that sang to my sleepy endangered-child soul.
my dad spoke slowly, calmly, quietly, but seriously, i was four
and full of giddy bliss whenever my parents or older brother
spent time in my room – it always felt like a guest star was visiting
my tv show, the room shrinking in response to their anomalous presence.
listen, he said, there are always more people who hate jews than the number
of jews who are alive. at every point in time.
you must understand this.
and also. there are always more people who don't hate
jews than people who hate jews.
you must understand the danger. and you must understand
there are always fewer people with hate in their hearts
in this gigantic breathtaking world that we both adore.
i don't have hate in my heart. my heart is slippery with time
and bruised, plump with relentless hope.
all of our bests and all of our worsts go
so fast, so fast
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what we do to animals
florence killed millions &millions of
chickens / what we do / my secret
confession / knee-deep in wood-chips / i never
connected with animals / but always knew / like
right / like rain / they have souls / i became
a vegetarian at age ten / &been one since
because i am not comfortable with the indignity
of eating someone / but eat away / go ahead / i'm
not here to judge or proselytize / not here
to feel comfortable naming animals / not
keeping them as pets / i believe in the food
chain / or something / but millions of millions
of chickens drowned in a hurricane / boggles
the / tickles the / tricks the / shivers the / hurts
the / oh / for every of the / million chicken
souls / &i don't know much / but i do know
that i was a pig in a past life / so don't even
get me started on the thousands of pigs
killed / cold / alone / wet / confused / in this
hurricane / i don't like this / i don't like any
of this / when my dad was seventeen / he worked
on a farm / was in charge of the chickens / he left
the water on / by accident one night &the next
day saw that he had drowned all the chickens /
all two hundred / or so / chickens / he was so
mortified / so upset / he refused to ever work
with animals again / my whole life he was
haunted by those chickens / my dad would
say / ugh, get away from me / to friendly
dogs who came to sniff around / why do they
like me i'm no good, no good / he'd mutter /
a swell of discolored contaminated water filled
with rotting animal carcasses can trick the eye /
some believed they were seeing a new kind
of algae / some thought they were looking at
thousands of beautiful dresses lost at sea
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twelve years of here / there days on repeat
autumnal tundra / florescent suction / blows
change / the bad kind / dithering diligent
daughter descends to knees / nieces pieces to
please / east coast me me me / pulling
muscles from a shell / father farther health
failing / further father hell / i'm letting you go
/ it's okay you can go now / go go / hard to let
go / heaping praise migraines me for days /
illness is no ones fault-line crack / press your
feet hard zo into my lower back / just soothe
bed-pains / blinding light too much / brother
can't do it never ever could / made of wood /
keep my hands close memories closer / keep
your moth shop tended if you want to be a
poster girl for bystander intervention / once
twice / every time / nothing could ever be
enough good to balance out grapefruit
hate-stained moment / twenty-first century is
for tears / kerosene flicker in here out there
quicker / sicker and sicker / let go let go
directive / mmmm kind of mom not mom
ever-mom mess / nearing g-w-b speed-bump
early morning sounds smells arrest / opening
a heart is only good with a wrench / a potholder
time friction grip hot-handle / deface
all sick hick signs / all the hick time / hick
crime / in thick hick pine / my problems are
plenty / just getting {myles voiced} stahted /
this kind of arrogant prick presumes to know
when it's time for others to die / it's okay /
you can let go / when i hear of other quaint
death moments / honey cried out to momhon
/ don't die don't leave don't go / i admire and
feel like a clinical cold fish / it was his time /
all of the organs of his body were going /
fifty-three so young / easing transitions
my namesake guess / rain / welcome rain /
welcome / hue here and saturated there / toast
to every time holocaust surviving grandparents
outlive their son / granddaughter hugs herself
with brain pain and heartache fissure / under
these ugly wet boots is ugly wet news / veiny
tuesday drum to foolsday / i'm thinking in this
position / what's the matter wednesday / sick
to say / let's all die before next week / excuses
ex we cis exit okayness / you say this / yelling
/ hey miss / last words / zoe zoe zo zo zoezo / i
don't know where zoe is / before consciousness
closed the door / thirty-four hours later / just
us / my dad kindred spirit fierce-love critical
devotion guide and / little me / in a crushing
doom room ICU cocoon / blooming heart /
slows blooming down / to blooming zero
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hey, western chauvinist
please be gentle
with me
if you
want to
not get picked
on i want to
not get
picked
off i
celebrate
beauty
what me
what
love trials
wicked raw
&tired
companion
do we love
similar things
is obsession
a kind of
love
hate is an
obsession
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lordy
whenever someone says
there's an active shooter
in pittsburgh at a
synagogue / my
stomach drops out of
my body &i lose it
somewhere on the trail
i'm out here in the
green, my courtyard
still lush &often
damp with dew, please
don't murder me just
because i am a jew
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Header image courtesy of Robert Monaghan. To view his Photo Essay, go here.
Zoe Canner is an angry, anti-racist, 3rd Generation Holocaust Survivor. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in SUSAN / The Journal, Naugatuck River Review,The Laurel Review, Arcturus of the Chicago Review of Books, Storm Cellar, Maudlin House, Occulum, Pouch, Indolent Books' What Rough Beast, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles where she indulges in hilly walks at dusk when the night-blooming jasmine is at its peak fragrance.
