Jaimie Gusman lives in Honolulu where she is a PhD candidate at the University of Hawaii, teaches creative writing and composition, and runs the M.I.A. Art & Literary Series (http://miahonolulu.wordpress.com/). Her work has been published nationally and internationally by Unshod Quills, Hearing Voices, Hawaii Women’s Journal, Tinfish Press, Spork Press, Shampoo, Anderbo, Juked, Barnwood, DIAGRAM, Dark Sky Magazine, 2 River Review, The Dirty Napkin Review, and others. She has a chapbook coming out from Tinfish Press, as well as a chapbook coming out from Highway 101 press this year.
Everything is For Seen
Perhaps I will jump from the roof she says. I imagine she won’t go and even if she does she can’t break like the precious bowls like the ceramic platters on our heads. No one wants me as in desires me goes fang-thirsty to the hole in the ground. She removes her dress. Look at me. Look at my scars. I am not worship not even a moment of it. I bend down so that heels are under thighs and I get close to her feet. She wiggles her toes arches her masses with tongue-strength with the energy of wood. I am her bale of rope I am what she will go on hanging herself with. Get up she says get close to my mouth. I can smell her throat but I am not sure how I know this how I know anything about her body. Put your head between my teeth she says and I do like this when I get inside the throat stench becomes stronger like cow stomach like goat brain like the desire of it. Do you see them she asks. I see six eggs pale as soap little cracks in their shells red rivers she said these are the blood lines and I need them out (with tears I think) please would you like to hold one would you like to go to the roof and have a throw
Education
Master is a silly word because what it means is that there are two. One is the master and one is not. This is the first lesson the Shekhinah tells us. We are told and we are given quizzes on this idea, which we fill out by coloring inside the lines of a bubble and when we fail with the idea we are to take the quizzes again. I raise my hand and say I am a student. She looks at me for the first time I am wise and I know this as a student should always be of an owl’s mind. I think this and she beats her chest and growls as a beast of the wood. I cannot see her eyes as they are not broken but sealed. She has been standing upright since she arrived and now she gets down to her knees and digs them into the ground which is not soft as it is from pebble and sand. Beneath her is the pool of blood which she bends down to and cups in her hands. I’m sorry she says again and again and she tells us to cup our hands too so that she might pour herself into our palms