I.
She penetrated the jungle
On a mission
To bring people what they didn’t know
They wanted
The blood of a sacrifice
The wine of one anointed
The whole haunted history of the West
She came to install it
Into her savage breast
Sometimes she still felt civilized
Most of the time not
Most of the time
She felt the jungle inside her
Wild, growing
Thick, hot
Birds cawing
Monkeys swinging tree to tree
Insects flying, snakes crawling
Inside her
The rainforest grows
Unceasing
From the outside they say
You would never know
She smiles
With the smile she bought from a dentist
On 40th Street
When her bite began to rot
From the bittersweet success
Of too much sugar
Too much stress
And now her skin is snow
And she wears Western dress
II.
She knows how to find out anything
About anyone
How to pull books from the Internet
Or a pre-intelligent library shelf
Anything about anyone
Except herself
Marveling
How long it takes
For things to grow back
For a long time
After the fire raged and died
And everything inside was black ash
And she was no more valuable
Than a stack of cash
From a world fallen
After the volcano
Had hurled its mighty puke
Onto the civilization next door
Onto a plaque of humans
Who received the rebuke
Even though such a thing is never meant
For them
And even when it happens
Without seeming intent
After understanding
It is not in our nature
To be an accident
But the way of man
Is to make meaning
Of some unimaginable tangent
Of the divine plan
She grieved
And to this day she refuses
To believe in this god
Or the ways he tried to deceive her
From her own god
Who rises again
Primitive and odd
Like some strange ritual object
From a temple in Bali
Or an ocean fog
Hers is a goddess now
She is Shakti
She is Kali
Her god is a presence, a flame
Who knows how to exist
Without a name
Not blood or water
Not bread or wine
Her god is not human
Or divine
Her god is a knot
He can never cut through
He will not emerge
From the jungle of her maker
He will not tame her
Or overtake her
The man who came
And tried to scorch the earth
To clothe the naked
And shame their very birth
The man who could not look
Into her eyes
And see himself
Or see his god
On his mission
To a sterile eternity
III.
She remembers now
The blazing terror
And the threat of hurt
She remembers his hands
And the smell of soap
And dirt
She remembers the jungle
And how it used to grow
Before he penetrated
What he could not ever truly know
How to love
Or recognize
And now
She carries that jungle inside
A jungle that never dies
But it grows
Strong and in secret
It grows deep
Hidden and wide
A seed
Refusing to fall
Refusing to bleed away
Yet she still prays
That love still stay
Alive
By Julie Flanders
Photo by Averie Woodward
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October Process 