Womxn’s History Month Special Issue Poetry Winner: Poems by Winniebell Xinyu Zong
In the End You All Get Caught
after my rapist steve and his best friend ron
you peel me off
the grassland
laugh as you each taunt my
small
snail
life
between your fingers merciful god
who won’t crush a shell
today but he can
front teeth flash
in arousal for now
you own me you discovered me
in dirt saved a pearl
from my own
home now you press
me down
on a foreign land watch me
lick
your endless body & desert
moisture
on your chest hair over beach-
burned skin
now I repel you
with swift retreats
you can never catch
into a shelter I carry
everywhere the privilege in that
now you jump
for the chance to smother
this one
for the story to tell the next one
that life did a disservice to whom a hopeless
romantic salvaged all he could
the sane
remains of something itchy
now your victim tears
want justice for look
look my flesh
will forever soil the back
of your shoe
stain the good name
on your resume
& march
on your bedsheets
for when I wake
it is never too late
why is it never too late
you fear for the slowly but surely
mucus
glued to your windows a web of trial
oh what if I
will be the reason you are re-
membered
burrow
i raised my claws
against the whiff
of harbor air which
faithfully smelled like
your morning breath
& the froth
of your affection
when you said
you liked my pussy
because it’s not
fishy
you called me honey
for being your
head-off body-split
ama-ebi shipped fresh
from a foreign land
you coveted for
taste no
i was the crayfish
that you de-veined
alive with the shell on
that you threw
into the saltwater tub
hundreds of my sisters
already waiting there
to die and i
coiled my stomach
retreated from
the mountain
of their bodies
digging for
a mud burrow
to reclaim
the remains
of what once
held my inside
& was now
a hollowed
tunnel
licking
& retching
water
Photo Credit: “Female Warrior on Magical Animal, shadow puppet from Gaoxiong, Taiwan, Lin Liu-Hsin Museum” by Hiart licensed under Public Domain and obtained from Wikimedia Commons.
