Arpine Konyalian: THE BLACK EEL

Silent
blind of skin
bearing heavy what was told 

in smoothness that is denial of form, categories
of scaly, crusty, protruding 

categories... she moves 

black and blind
with stone-colored madness in her eyes 

in her enlarged eyes that carry
the bulge of drowned Mesopotamia
on their pupils, that focus back and forth
that flutter . . .
her strong-muscled jaws have disappeared inward 

within themselves, and she hurts
from the thinness of purpose that presses 

hard on her lips

the black eel knows
an obscure deaf matter that is
sand of Palmyra against her skin
a hovering of wetness that warps her 

carries her through foreign land 

slithering
through foreign rock, over
huge water reflecting her form
awestruck and twisting ...
she is blanked with befitting instinct 

that drives her in a release, thrusts her 

charm, evoking the demons of the sea 

the orange of the sun
the yellow-orange that beguiles her
that she evades, knowing
she is star material
on earth, rock material
striped silk material of aeons
soon to be splintered, dispersed
into a groaning cycle
of black eel
eel unto eel

nothing will stop her
not even her awkward skeletal mind
she has been on her way
for a long time now

This poem appeared in the Winter 1981 issue of Ararat