Inversion

I never left the cult
the Gods
rescued me and kept
me in their closet of silks

the sound of little ankle bells
every night my eyes
are honeyed shut
flowers for breakfast

flowers for lunch
no dinner
I throw up flowers
my world is beautiful

my Lord has paid
for my isolation
I am exempt from taxes
I am princess

Aurora with an arrow
through the head
breathe in peace
breathe out desire

I never needed
a career consultation
breathe in love
breathe out my ugly inversion

my unworn body
gently moth eaten
I am a perfect
stranger

God's Tongue

Matte sky blue smeared across everything that belonged to Him
A color you could enter like the sky
I did this daily the color of consciousness most dilated
looking into the baby mouth of God
My mother claimed she saw her reflection
heaving over the toilet
the face of the Terrible Goddess
taking over her own face
We all saw things through the opaque filter of our faith
The sky crept its way into the walls, the carpet, the candle flames, the gravel, the barbed wire
intense, obsessive, suffocating baby blue

If you had given me a blue lotus I would have eaten it

Chosen

When God wants to gets rid of you
He doesn’t do it Himself
He sends His secretary
she takes you down

into a walk-in freezer
you sit on a white plastic bucket
there are shelves

with gallon jars of rose syrup
mango pickle frozen
cream cheese in bulk

you are tied down by your dress six yards
of imitation silk with floral print snakes
around you getting tighter

the secretary stands close and holds a knife
shaped like a note and a picture of Him
in front of your face and the knife goes slowly

slowly into your ribs until
it’s all the way in
and she says He told me to tell you

He loves you He loves you and He wants you
to carry His love with you far
far away and you say but this will kill me

I will die and you
give the knife back
and God's secretary says nothing

Duhita Cori Kresge is a NYC based dancer, writer, teacher, and bodyworker. Her first chapbook, isn't devotion, will be published by No, Dear/Small Anchor Press in Fall '19. She currently collaborates and performs with various artists including Rashaun Mitchell+Silas Riener, Rebecca Lazier, Hanna Novak, Xavier Cha, Esmé Boyce, Sarah Skaggs, Wendy Osserman, Bill Young, Liz Magic Laser, and Charles Atlas. Kresge is featured in the documentary film Blade #1 by Zuzka Kurtz and CUNNINGHAM 3D film by Alla Kovgan. She teaches movement workshops regularly at the School for Poetic Computation.