Susan Slaviero's first full length book of poetry, CYBORGIA, is forthcoming from Mayapple Press. She is also the author of two poetry chapbooks: An Introduction to the Archetypes (Shadowbox Press, 2008) and Apocrypha (Dancing Girl Press, 2009). She has a BA in English / Creative & Professional Writing from Lewis University. She is the editor of blossombones: a literary journal and she blogs occasionally at mythology-and-milk.
BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN 2.0
I wake in a state of clitoral arousal.
I hear the cadence of my own dissection.
Dark, festering segments replaced
with long curves of choreographed glass.
The clink-tink of a wrench in my
[digitized]
pelvis. What magic? An after/image of generativity.
I am the (dys)recognition of a two-sexed
system. My metalhood is evolution.
See, Zombie? You've always wanted a terminal
affect is characteristic of my vampire
[species]
I will not burn, even at blue temperatures.
I'll be your nickel marionette, a (fac)simile,
the spread of silver between your legs,
casting reflections of coitus on the ceiling.
I am loops and angles, a slight copper
taint on your tongue—
[inorganic]
oils and welded plates. Now available
in either decorative brass or stainless
[steel]
POSTMODERN WEREWOLVES
are drinking water out of women's footprints
hoping to transform sinew into silk.
They are hybrid simulacra: bearskin
berserkers, red-toothed villainesses
deconstructing myths of crooked limbs,
foaming jaws. Being afflicted with silverburn
(they say) doesn't mean they're skinwalkers.
They have no fear of crucifixes, holy water,
or wolfsbane—they can shapeshift
into saints at will, or teleport from Arcadian woods
into spaceships or suburban bedrooms.
There are no natural-born predators,
no mooncages or cyclical attacks.
Only stories, simulations
where a witch throws an iron bar
over their backs, reveals
the naked androgyne beneath.
CYBORG FANTASIES
They built a girl-bomb in zero-gravity.
Mannequin pins and triggers spit-welded
to her liquid wrists, radioactive knuckles.
A mimicry of appendage, the switchflick
of erotic lenses and ultraviolet ice. A daemon
coded to mutate. Flex, recoil. A sinister
subroutine of grotesque anatomy. Robotic
oxidation. A nuclear lake in a woman's mouth.
What think-tank of amateur scientists
and pornographers devised the ideal feminine
bone structure in pressurized rooms?
What pill? What paranoia? The neural net
of O :: orgasm :: organism :: oblique.
She is a bullet under your tongue, the supple
process of bioflesh and sweet machine.