By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo 

 

“Questions of a Woman’s Life” was composed on the 24th of March, 2017. The other poem, “Blind” may have been composed in the same year. There are still no answers but she’s no longer blind.

half a life
of what she lived
others live today
did she ever wonder
or care how others took
what she took away?

was the passion as potent
as dynamites exploding
on unprotected fishing grounds
or as merciless as the chainsaw
of loggers in a virgin forest?

did the trees burn
did the birds fly in panic
as she rolled in the fire
did she bite and cry
at the precise moment
when the stars appeared
like cascading jewels
before her closed eyes,
once or twice or thrice?

only she knows.
and the forest.
and the man who cannot breathe
in the bounty of her breasts.

 

Blind

I was told to use my head
if I decide to love you
but that is IF, if the decision is mine
I know that it is not mine
because I told myself not to love you
and I still do, like I told myself
not to drink coffee, and I still do
like I told myself not to look in your eyes
and I still do, and I still do not see your eyes
even if I look, because I am blind
by the power of your gaze
so I look elsewhere to find them
and look as closely as a blind woman
would look for a precious jewel she has lost
that is under her nose, and cannot see.

I am blind, so blind
despite the fact that I see myself, a reflection
of your existence, your bodily existence
for which my eyes, and all my senses
are rendered senseless and without logic
speechless, mesmerized, immobile
beside your body, whose every flesh murmurs
with poems that float with….? desire, maybe?
the words are curling around my tongue
as your arms curl around me like an octopus
slithering, around circles and quiet corners
I have never been before, and I can see stars
among the corals, in new colors,
dancing before my eyes, in my utter blindness.

“You are dumb!”, they said, “and not just blind!”
when exactly, did I lose my brain?
is it hiding under my nose
with the jewels that were lost?
yes or no. yes and no. all of the above.
please repeat the question, my own question.
I have become a moron, fast becoming an idiot,
unable to remember my own name.

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