Dia Publications Spotlight: Sara Jane Stoner, “Readings in Contemporary Poetry”

In honor of National Poetry Month, each week we present a poem from our Readings in Contemporary Poetry: An Anthology, edited by Vincent Katz, long-time curator of the eponymous series. This week features Sara Jane Stoner’s “Indictment.” For more poetry programs at Dia, check out our next event in the series, Tribute to Anne Waldman, on Tuesday, May 11, 6 pm.

from Indictment
By Sara Jane Stoner

I took the lowing ocean       to your footstep spread it       lathed it out

Between                                                                the not

not of us and what all of     the qualm danger and the distance guarantee you

require of me        of this erotic she             or what                 you thought

it sterling was              and I thought winnow        blanche               I saw the water

palm             and heave         beneath you there retract       muscular

feather with some air

cough up a kind of bone     a bone shaped bone         a bone shaped

like                                                                            a father

But it was                the shadow of some lesser fish              valedictory: I haven’t

studied                so fuck all wouldn’t know

Your knife you drew                what knife it wasn’t

real or unreal either               saw your sharpen

start             and there were                                                                        shifts

in my air and children               filled there        with your needles                             And I wept

with your elegance and               I laughed        with your serious                              traced your

patterns                              in a thousand drabbles                             a nasty foam

My lowing

ocean               darkened at your patterns

There was

a cry when you         sliced me open with

            your pattern

      to seize that bone           of yours what was                              and

always ever for                of yours                              all ways until you’re

downed

           you sliced me open         and you found

me                              I was missing             that rib and I was never               your rib

when the singing entered     the over underneath had            always been

a filth              singing centuries           of I was          my own                    jugal bone

not never your rib.      so you made      a carnage that confirmed you

as

some sort of “woman”

              You birthed           a terror for yourself                      and burned a home

into yourself of it                           My blood said                         Look at us                               all of

us children              asks you

Do you suffer             that blindness that saw    your face              on all the

                children

Look again              it says

Look again              my blood

     and you will

find them                all gone              and I have bled         for years

like a woman

so sad             it said               so sad

your aging body              will hide from you

      in fear