Curse Two: The Naming

By Cynthia Huntington b. 1951 Cynthia Huntington

Katherine, Katherine, Katherine, Katherine.

Black hair, small cold eyes, whom you loved.

Cock-tease Katherine, chewer of souls.

The door blew open and she blew in, a ghoul.

Black air, small cold wind, taking everything.

Fish-eater Katherine, whose nails dig blood.

I’m going to call her pinch-cunt, pickle-lip,

piss-dribble, shit-smear, goat’s-meat breath.

I want to throw stones at her mother’s corpse,

send her children to name-change foster homes.

May the coat she is wearing burst into flames

and boil the flesh blistering off her bones.

May she be refused in both heaven and hell

and wander the earth forever without rest—

a hungry ghost clinging to the rocks and trees.

Source: The Radiant (Four Way Books, 2003)

Biography

Cynthia Huntington was born in Meadville, Pennsylvania. She earned a BA at Michigan State University and an MA from the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College.

Huntington’s free verse poems often examine the bare mind, restlessly turning the form of the individual against both built and natural environments, mapping both threat and respite against a shifting screen of personal memory. Introducing her early work in . . .

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