Olga Broumas > Quotes

“I am a woman committed to
a politics
of transliteration, the methodology

of a mind
stunned at the suddenly
possible shifts of meaning - for which
like amnesiacs

in a ward on fire, we must
find words
or burn.”
― Olga Broumas, Beginning with O

“We came together
like months
in a lunar year, measured in nights, dividing
perfectly into female phases. Like women anywhere
living in groups we had synchronous menses. And had
no need of a wound, a puncture, to seal our bond.”
― Olga Broumas, Beginning with O

“III.

I take my love to Manita. Swift-boned, green-
eyed, dressed in her dark skin and hair, I take my Love in
on fire. Manita moans.
Manita's hands

flow
delicate as insects, agile
as fish, cool as the shifting water, the night-
quiet lake. I take my Love to her hand on
fire. She takes my love.”
― Olga Broumas, Beginning with O

“Don't cure me, Mother, I couldn't bear
the bath
of your bitter spittle.
No salve
no ointment in a doctor's tube, no brew in a witch's kettle, no lover's mouth, no friend
or god could heal me
if your heart
turned in anathema, grew stone
against me.
Defenseless
and naked as the day
I slid from you
twin voices keening and the cord
pulsing our common protests, I'm coming back
back to you
woman, flesh
of your woman's flesh, your fairest, most
faithful mirror,
my love
transversing me like a filament
wired to the noonday sun.

Receive
me, Mother.”
― Olga Broumas, Beginning with O