Museworthy: The Natives Came Bearing Gifts

Issue 

They placed on a growing heap
All the goods they had brought
Later we would each take
What we wanted

Rosario Baluyot
Posthumously famous
Ten years old
Eyes blue as eyeshadow
Raw mouth
Split like a tomato
Body not cooked
Breasts just starting to rise
No clothes
Maria at her throat
Mickey Mouse socks
In a handbag
Four stitches in a cut
Between her eyes
A broken vibrator
Buzzy baby
Rammed up
Between her legs
Still alive after two daylights
Curio lying
On a hill of garbage
Right outside
The naval base
On a hill of garbage

BY MTC CRONIN

MTC Cronin has had six books of poetry published, the most recent being Talking to Neruda's Questions and Bestseller (both Vagabond Press, 2001). Another collection, My Lover's Back, is forthcoming in 2002 (UQP). She is currently working on a PhD, Poetry and Law: Discourses of the Social Heart, and has recently received an Established Writers New Work Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. Her books are available by contacting her at: <margie_cronin@hotmail.com> or ph: (02) 9550 2918.

From Green Left Weekly, November 21, 2001.
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