Her work is never done.  It brings out
dirt and dust; it makes water
marks and holes.  Her work is clay pots
and straw baskets,drawers, hidden
compartments.  Her work is letters
secretly read under the streetlamp.  Her work
is greasy and raw,made of wings and blood
and screams.  Her work is a tooth, a tongue,
a bone.  A lump of sugar, a maze, a silk thread "white
and bright." Her work is never done.

A tongue sucking a tooth, her work
is dangerous, slippery, foreign.  Her work
is painful and pained, hurtful and hurt.  Continents
cannot contain it.  It overflows, spills from
the sides, oozes sticky and yellow
from each crevice left open,
uncovered.  Her work is never done.

The edges yawn, let out steam, vapor,
smells.  The edges curl up and away.  Her work
soothes, rages, and sweats.  Her work is
inside her body.  It comes out
from moist interstices, creeping, snaking its way
towards the others.  Her work is never done.

- Beatriz Badikian

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