Arsenic Lobster poetry journal
Issue Sixteen
Spring 2008
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Explaining the stigmata with poetry, denotation
Susan Slaviero

stigmata (noun) 1. excrescences of flesh representing nailheads with rounded backs, the marks of Passion: As in, Catherine bore the stigmata on her wrists and ankles, sometimes bloody, sometimes dry. She is a woman, marked by naked skin, a seamstress by nature, wounds unremedied by conventional means. 2. a slit in the side, the ghost-marks of whips or cords: Marie suffers the stigmata, exsanguinates blood oranges, leaking juice at the seam of her white linen dress. She nurses victims of cholera, melancholia, misanthropy, buries the near-dead, kneels on beds, her arms crossed over her breasts, foot dressed in a copper shoe. 3. wounds produced by the sole action of the imagination: Her preoccupation with cruciferous postures led to the development of stigmata. Liquids may ooze; these substances are produced by the dilation of skin pores or by acid candy on the tongue. Piercings brought on by acts of somnambulism, or by the use of theatrical props. Look for necrotic tissue lacking a fetid scent.

About Susan Slaviero

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