AGNES MARTON

After Alex Tizon’s article "My Family’s Slave" as regards Eudocia Tomas Pulido 

(The Atlantic, June 2017)

Have You Ever Slapped Someone Transparent?

I’ll be a djin, that’s what I deserve.

To linger before becoming a shell.

To be sold without a price

and to feed those who won’t

call me a slave, noble souls.

To skim or not to skim,

my problem, not theirs.

They can speak

up. My masters. Especially him,

his voice is a glacier calving,

drifting them too. He knows     how to skin

a lion, but it’s me who buries the kids’

darling tabby, humming to mild

the cling of the shovel

on the gravel. We hug. They ask

why I never giggle. Never yawn.

Never say no. They ask why

my name is Where The Hell

Are You Bitch. They don’t even ask

why my flapping hands are wind.

Agnes Marton is a Hungarian-born poet, writer, librettist, Reviews Editor of The Ofi Press, founding member of Phoneme Media, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She is based in Luxembourg. Her recent publications include Estuary: A Confluence of Art and Poetry (winning the Saboteur Award), her poetry collection  Captain Fly’s Bucket List and two chapbooks with Moria Books (USA).