Panika M. C. Dillon
make way for the apostles—the sad little centers of the universe
in primped plosives, Cybele is
the grenade in
the grenadine unpinned backstage—
you rang? / nothing good
ever started with a bang / saints
rotten as apples in
the barrel of a police station—
rotten to their cores
the apostles swore, Cybele
is as incendiary
as any Eve, she’s a whore / laurel
wreaths shackle her feet
to the Tree of Knowledge / gun powder
is pressed into her pleats,
ink ironed into her spine to
anchor gospels in
an hourglass / she’s not the cherry
on a mall map or the site
of a first kiss / there are only
a dozen eggs to split
a pitcher with / the apostles
sharpen their knives to eat
her alive, to carve a womb from
tomb / for the encore,
Cybele pulls herself up by
her infinite red
garters & wishes on a star
to be more than / she’s not
a bombshell blonde, but a hollow
boom nonetheless / hallowed
be her name from cradle to grave /
the apostles forced
Cybele to bring you into
this world—don’t tempt her to
take you out / she’s the machine who
weaponized us—turned all
to awl / she’s the end of the world
as we know it
exit through the front teeth
after the February 2024 report from the UN’s Human Rights Commission
on the IDF’s treatment of detainees from Gaza
a box is a box until you
put women in it add
pouring rain only then is it
a cage enter trapdoor
with a front row seat to torture
enter systemic rape
on your dinner theater plate mouths
frozen in laughter caught
on tape on a tongue rests a scream
which will never escape
“‘make way for the apostles--the sad little centers of the universe’ was inspired by the tarot card ‘The World’ which is depicted as a woman with red ribbons. While it has gone through many revisions including a concrete poem and a play before settling into its current form, it was always a conversation between the world as a woman and those who seek to control or obliterate her. About ‘exit through the front teeth’: I strongly recommend everyone read the UNHRC’s February 2024 report.” —Panika M. C. Dillon
Panika M. C. Dillon’s upcoming publications include Prairie Schooner, One Page Poetry, Casting Aspersions and others. She won the 2024 Bedford Competition for Poetry and placed second for the 2024 Vivian Shipley Poetry Prize. She received her MFA in creative-writing poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. She is a legislative reporter at the Texas Capitol, major medical foster for Austin Pets Alive!, and volunteer staff crew leader at the Kerrville Folk Festival.
