Gloria Anzaldúa, "The Coatlicue State/La Herencia de Coatlicue"

protean being

dark     dumb     windowless     no moon glides

across the stone     the nightsky     alone     alone

no lights just mirrorwalls     obsidian     smoky     in the

mirror she sees     a woman with four heads     the heads

turning round and round     spokes of a wheel     her neck

is an axle     she stares at each face     each wishes the

other not there     the obsidian knife in the air     the

building     so high     should she jump     would she feel

the breeze     fanning her face     tumbling down the steps

of the temple     heart offered up to the sun     wall

growing thin     thinner     she is eyeless     a mole

burrowing deeper     tunneling here     tunneling there

tunneling through the air  in the photograph a double

image     a ghost arm alongside the flesh one     inside her

head     the cracks ricocheting      bisecting

crisscrossing     she hears the rattlesnakes     stirring in

a jar     being fed with her flesh      she listens to the

seam between dusk and dark     they are talking     she hears

their frozen thumpings     the soul encased     in black

obsidian     smoking     smoking     she bends to catch a

feather of herself     as she falls     lost in the

silence     of the empty air     turning      turning

at midnight     turning into a wild pig     how to get back

all the feathers     put them in the jar     the rattling

full circle and back     dark     windowless    no moon

glides across the nightsky     nightsky     night