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Unnamed

Noelle Shoemate

My bare feet press into the earth, clay brackets each one of my toes.
I wonder why I have no shoes.
I reach my hands up, pull at the pink sparklers falling from the sky
looking for a message; there is none.
What is done is done.

I wander to the fence
a girl of maybe twenty-three asks my name—
she has the same face
I had. I shake my head,
remembering instead how I felt
when people called for me kindly
beyond these hills.

My head is filled with wet sand.
Please remember. Remember.
Static courses through my mind; I recall
how I pushed my feet deep in green boots,
laces knotted three times round.

My hands were at the dark green board, chalk
outlining each finger. The young faces watched mine,
tried to guess if I drew a duck, a horse
or a small kingdom
filled with thieves.
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck lifting,
each one joining together.
I knew that things had come undone.

I saw you once before, in between my dreams
holding a finger to your lips, asking me
to hold still, to forget the pain
that clutched my skull.
You gave me a book wrapped in red paper.
Hastily I began to unwind the twine
but you said, Not yet.

At the chalkboard
your gossamer hands encircled my waist.
I turned to see if anyone in the room was aware,
but no one saw, no one guessed.
I shuddered as I saw you place jeweled stones
on my chalk-drawn thumb.

Why were the jewels missing,
on the finger born for love?
But you said, Now you’ll never be mistaken for lost
as I ferry you between dreams of heaven and hell.
I was marked as only yours.
For now, and then.
When I asked what I should be called,
you said, All mine.
Your fingers unlaced my shoes,
even as I resisted your cold touch.
There was no need for them, you promised
as we would walk there without any greed.
When I asked again for my name,
you only shook your head,
staring at me with eyes made of clouds.

Starlight filters through my hair, illuminating
the strange toughness of my skin.
Who might remember me? But everyone’s hands twist
and pull on pieces of rust-colored fabric,
showing me their lies, the way I am
unseen even as I stand inside their footprints,

matching their bent and broken toes.
“My name?” I ask a shadow. It flattens into a tree.
I dip my head into the folds of robe
tickling the blank face
with the icy tips of my lashes.
The figure laughs with great
barks
that cause a tear
to fall
down
to the turn of my lip.

The bottoms of my feet itch against the dry grass.
I blanket the ground
with my great-grandmother’s chartreuse robe.

Close your eyes, you say,
and shake out a powder, trace it
around my lips. I taste the honeysuckle
that sticks to my skin, sweat spooling
through my toughened hands,
erasing the latticing lines that say:
princess, warrior or
giver of the sun and moon.
The early morning dawn scratches my face,
and I still don’t know.
You know me, I think, so why can’t you
tell me my name?
It’s unimportant, you say.
Spittle glistens on your cherry, chapped lips.
The green of my eyes
has burnt out of me, no di?erent
than a fallen star.
I don’t recognize my voice.
I lay the gold crown you brought me
on my head, the four points
digging into my face, each point
corresponding to a direction
I can no longer take.

Now I’ll just stay
and stay
my light refracting
ribbons over the faint
beat of my heart.

Right before my eyes close,
he hands me the book,
the one that made me wonder
during that night filled with fright.
It’s time, he says,
unwinding the string.

Persephone.

My stomach feels sick
I understanding at last
how I will sink down there fast.

And yet—
questions still form out of the fog,
hover above me.
I try to claw out of your fingertip embrace,
scream
but the question of who I am
is fixed
on my faded, ocean-blue lips.

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