Melissa Guillet
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Melissa Guillet has been hailed as a "dancer ofwords." She has featured nationally, includingAlburqueque, Seattle, Oklahoma City, Winter Park,Florida, and throughout New England. Her work hasbeen published in several anthologies, including NthPosition and Scrivener's Pen, as well as three recentchapbooks by Sacred Fools Press. In her new work, sheis exploring, separately, the female archtypes offairytales and the search for identity with mentalillness. She has also acted in "Both Sides Againstthe Middle," "Man of La Mancha," "Twelfth Night," and"The Vagina Monologues." Her writing gives personalinsight into female identity in legend, archtype, andsociety.
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Red
She wears red
And they can smell it.
She bleeds vulnerability,
Cries for compassion
Like it¹s a cure for cancer.
The woods are dark;
She lives on the fringe.
She is not married, not maiden,
Not owned.
They want to name her, but
Red Riding Hood
Does not have a name.
She looks down
The modest path, knows
She will stray
For the flowers that catch
Her eye.
She likes pretty things,
Likes to be
Pretty.
And she knows
They see her.
They encircle her
Like a left-handed ring.
She tugs
at the empty finger,
Skin tight
Like a scar
As they eye
Her unprotected flesh.
They travel in packs,
A sort of society
Where they trade notes
On their kills.
Divorced woman
Does not have a name,
Only a hood
And an empty hand.
She gathers flowers,
Because this is what she wants.
One approaches,
Smelling like a beast.
He tries to awaken
The beast within her.
Slight of hand, and he
Paws her shoulder,
Pulling closer
To better see her, hear
Her, smell her.
Her loins have not forgotten,
But she turns away
To be accosted by
Another.
He is wrapped around
Her thighs,
Rubbing up, panting,
Imploring her to follow him
For a bite to eat.
A third attempts to taste her
With hungry, hungry eyes.
She cuts them open
With words:
Shed that gown, wolf.
I know who you are. I
am no sheep;
I¹ve ripped the wool from my eyes.
The only blood that flows here
Is exiting between my legs.
I can be naked
But more layered
Than you.
Turning away, she travels
Long through the dark,dark woods.
She reaches her home
Alone,
Her heart sinking
Like a stone.
She touches herself,
Thinks of him,
Cries.
The Crow Poems
I. Catalyst
I said this changes nothing
To the crow,
Who nodded like he understood;
But he understands
Catalysts and
Never, nevermore,
And how nothing
Begets never.
Ted¹s words are at the tip
Of his tongue,
Crying truth and disaster
Like Cassandra.
I listen to bees,
But birds have more to teach.
II. Stealing
Pandora was a catalyst.
Like the Crow.
She didn¹t like that things remain
In the dark.
Crow would steal
Peeks in the box, where
The moon and stars
Were hidden.
He¹d bide his time.
Pandora, too impatient,
Ripped the box open,
Forcing all to confront
Greed, fear, lust, envy,
Hope.
She sighed with relief.
Crow stole away one night,
Took the three boxes,
A rook in the night.
He opened them In the privacy of emptiness,
Unaware its contents
Would fill up the sky.
Now no one was alone.
When crow unleashed the sun,
It burned him to face it; It turned him black.
Pandora caught him
In her shiny pupils
And smiled.
There were no secrets anymore.
III. On Love and Murders
Crow opened his beak to speak.
Crow could not understand
Love,
Only his need for it.
Crow knew there were
Holes In the sky,In himself;
So he filled them
With stars,
With the moon,
Even pegged the sun in
The holes in our hearts.
But still there were holes;
Nothing begat incomplete.
I love you, Crow,I said.
But I love myself
More.
The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World
We moon over him,
washed in with the tide -
Pallid, perfect forehead.
Cold, silent lips.
We love what we do not know:
the seaweed-wrapped stranger.
Beneath the skin
of mud, scales, stones,
he was larger than life,
a house unto himself, handsome, and
bountiful as the sea.
We bathe the salt off him,
looking back at our lots in life.
Even the mightiest pillars fall.
Even the coarsest salt dissolves.
Not the fractured Orpheus,
this body is intact and no lyre to be found.
Now seeing his face, we are all Euridices
calling through the undertow,
calling without knowing his name.
If we name him,
will he be ours?
"Esteban, my love..."
"No, my love-"
"No, mine."
Only fools believe they can catch
moonlight in the tide.
But he was our star.
Not liquid, our fingers
pulled tightly through his netted hair,
Greener than the envy of
small dry useless husbands.
Not even our clothes
could cage him, contain him,
shirt buttons bursting and pants badly sewn.
We wanted to send him off in sails.
But he was too heavy, too real.
He belonged to no one else,
no other village.
But to keep him?
We sign our names to you, our Esteban,
with trinkets, charms, holy relics.
We choose you
a mother and a father
from the best of us,
all of us now your kin.
There were two moons that month.
Your death changed our lives.
The earth moves a million miles
as you lay perfectly
still.
