They Don't Like When She Eats with Her Hands
by Shelby Millarez Meyers
They Don’t Like When She Eats with Her Hands
My mother learned spoon and fork.
Gripped cold utensils in her fingers,
shuffled food around plate –
Chased chicken inside the corelle fence.
Familiar with water stains.
Rice sticks everywhere.
(When I was younger, I’d wake up with it on my clothes.)
She doesn’t eat like she used to
back home.
Her soft, tissue teeth caged in wire.
Holding powerful trident.
My aunt cried when she saw her.
You have a hard life in America? You send us all your money, how you eat? Why skinny? You sick? Eat eet eet.
We mestiza, big bone,
pig roasters.
Shuffling blood back home.
Fire out back.
Roasting meat into the banyan trees.
Strips of sunshine dried mangos
in folds of suitcases.
Flesh caught on zipper.
TSA’s gloved fingers pull out mute tongue.
Leave notes in pockets – we have been here.
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She cooks blood.
Rich purple.
My father isn’t here.
We inhale grease and
Slip into old habits.
Cross legged,
pinch rice in our fingers and dip into soy sauce.
We drink it.
Stain teeth black squid ink, charcoal.
Pick flesh apart with our nails.
Teeth bared.
Livers fed fat. Fingers sticky.
Gorge.
She Made Love
by Shelby Millarez Meyers
She Made Love
Like a chicken with her head cut off.
On that salty day
the clouds rained vinegar.
She loved him.
The air
was moist
with open mouthed kisses.
Kisses spit
into the back of the throat
to be cried out again.
The hard-plastic sole of his boot
crushed her wing.
The man began to saw at her throat.
She opened up
at command.
Bleed green iridescent feathers
and cinnamon blood
that turned purple when it breathed.
She breathed
through the chasm in her neck –
Two ruby woo lips panting,
spitting out oaths.
I saw her
draining out for him.
She loved him.
He lifted his boot –
and she flapped her wings haphazardly.
Ran off (right into the earth.)
A geyser
crying out
for her sweet, chocolate, cinnamon blood.
She wanted to soak it back up.
Lay in it and bathe her breasts in it
while he watched.
Shelby Millarez Meyers
Born in Negros Occidental, Philippines, Shelby Millarez Meyers immigrated to America when she was two. She is currently studying Humanities at New College of Florida.