Belladonna Magic

Belladonna Magic
spells in the form of poetry and photography

by

Christine Sloan Stoddard

Shanti Arts Publishing

Brunswick, Maine
 Belladonna Magic
spells in the form of poetry and photography

Copyright © 2019 Christine Sloan Stoddard

This is for every woman
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
in the constellation of womanhood.
whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Shanti Arts Publishing

Interior and cover design by Shanti Arts Designs

Shanti Arts LLC

193 Hillside Road
Brunswick, Maine 04011

shantiarts.com

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-947067-64-6 (softcover)

Library of Congress Control Number:

Contents
The Storm Inside a Woman 10
Story of a Shade Tree 12
Roses and Sand 15
Human Sisters 17
Baby Pool Dreaming 18
Garlic Eater 23
Mary in Wyoming 24
Sea Tales 26
The Cruelty of Ants 28
Lady Minnow 30
Sister Stars 33
Country Trysts and City Trysts 34
The Rarest Egg in the World 38
A Unity Poem for Women 41
The Snail’s Way 42
In the Owls’ Eyes 45
Honeysuckles in Heaven 47
A Subject in Her Son’s Kingdom 49
Rituals in Hope 50
Love Letters on Leaves 52
Naked in the Wilderness 54
Raspberry on a Barn Board 56
Polaroids Pinned to an Apple Tree 59
The Girl and the Mite 61
Seedling 62
Small Town Headline 64
The Book of Shame 66
Dripping Down Your Chin 68
Not My Grandmother’s Granddaughter 71
Cutting Peaches in the Snow 73
Brazil, Age 12 to 17 74
A Universe Illuminated by Love 80

7
Crab Sisters 82 Acknowledgments
The Forest Fish 84
Lady Menarche 86 Thank you to Nadia Gerassimenko for her guidance on
The Prudent Puffin 88 this project; to David Fuchs for his emotional support; and
to the Quail Bell Magazine crew for remaining such an
About the Author 93 enduring community.

8 9
The Storm Inside a Woman
No one told me
my body
was an earthquake,
my body’s
a hurricane,
tornado.
That my body
was and will always be
the eye of the storm.

They only told me

that I was a woman,
that I was to be
placid as a lake —
yet how can I be
human if I never
thunder, if I never rain?

I am wind
and I am hail
just as I am flesh
and I am blood.

This lake will stir.

This lake will flood.
And when it’s placid,
it will hypnotize.

10 11
Story of a Shade Tree

I grew into a pine tree

when you were born
because you needed shade.
You slept at my feet,
whispering to the moss
until summer days
faded into summer nights.

The Sun never asked

if I was too hot
when he beat my back
with his rays.
The summer days never faded
into summer nights fast enough.
I drank his energy in silence.

I am the tallest pine,

the strongest pine,
because of it.

12 13
 Roses and Sand

When my belly pulsed

with your new life,
I rubbed rose petals
over my navel
until my body became
a garden in bloom.

{My feet remain tan from

a summer in the sun.}

Sometimes I step into the ocean

to reconnect with
the soul that was mine
before you entered this world.

{My shoes still brim with

pebbles and sand.}

The oil that dances

on top of the sea
recalls the grease that enveloped you
as you took your first breath.

{I never washed my swimsuit

after Labor Day.
I simply wrung it dry,
hung it up,
and said I would
wear motherhood now.}

14 15
 Human Sisters

My sister and I bathe in olive oil.

We submerge ourselves in milk and honey.
We drown in champagne.
These bottles were all offerings from men
who vowed they worshiped
no other woman before us.
The pile runs high,
high enough to kiss the moon.
We took those offerings with no deceit.
“There is no altar,” we said.
“We have no religion.
We are not goddesses.
We are human.
Love us or leave us.”
And they all left us.
Though they found themselves capable
of paying homage to our bodies,
they could not love our souls.

16 17
Baby Pool Dreaming

Wishing, watching
the sparkle in the window
while trapped in a fever
dream —
this was how I was
when I birthed you.

Baby pools replicate

the womb,
the doctor said.
So I entered a womb
while you exited one.

Your exit was slow.

Many heartbeats long.
Many screams long.
Many prayers long.

— continued

18 19
 Shine into the
My eyes ate shadows,
darkness, the
but hungered for light.
blackest darkness.
You, my light,
my little golden light.
I will not eat
shadows forever,
Shine into the
I bellowed.
living room.
And the midwife
Shine into the
wiped my brow
altar I have built
until I forgot
over the course of
our home was
nine months.
not a cave.
Moss grows
on the altar.
When I first held you,
Ivy grows
you weighed less
on the altar.
than a flame.

20 21
 Garlic Eater

I prayed for unfamiliar faces

to press their cheeks
against my pillow.
I prayed for distracted strangers
to forget my name
before I even uttered it.

My thighs are sore.

I eat garlic so the
vampires cannot return.
I may have no dignity in
this moment, but I want
the bloom of my mortality.

Sometimes my room is so dark

that I cannot remember
if I am alive.

22 23
Mary in Wyoming

Sometimes when I wake up,

I wonder if my rapist is still sleeping.
I wonder if the Virgin Mary
wanted to run away to the New World
because she was somehow
the only Israelite who knew it existed.
I wonder if my rapist flips his pillow
to the cool side in the middle of the night.
I wonder if the Virgin Mary would have
miscarried while killing a deer
in the wilds of Wyoming.
I wonder if my rapist has whole or skim
milk with his store brand cereal.
I wonder if the Virgin Mary would have
seen the Native Americans as heathens.
I wonder if my rapist ever wears
the same shirt two days in a row.
I wonder if the Virgin Mary’s body
ever hurt like mine does
and how a shaman would have
healed the aches caused by Jesus.

24 25
Sea Tales

A sea swirls inside of me

and schools of shrimp swirl inside of it
and plankton swirls with those swirling schools.
There is no whale. There is no Jonah.
I rule my own little biome with stories for
my sea, my shrimp, my microscopic flora and fauna.

26 27
The Cruelty of Ants

I crawled into a log.

Ants crawled into my ears.
My eyes burned with sawdust.
My nipples burned hotter than my eyes.

Sometimes we subject ourselves to pain

because we don’t know
how else to cope.
Sometimes we try to dull pain
with more pain.

One ant bite barely penetrates my skin.

Many ant bites will make you believe
nobody ever loved you.
But the truth is that you were
always loved.
No number of ants can change that.

28 29
Lady Minnow

We cut the fish’s belly

and her eggs poured onto the riverbank.

When you cut my belly,

I had no eggs,
only tears.
Was I a mother if I never held my child?

We fell in love as children

as two minnows wallowing in a dry creek.
I would not learn how to swim until you could first.
Sometimes I wonder where I would be if
I just swam then.
What river?
What ocean?
Would those eggs ever have
formed inside of my body?
Would those eggs ever have died?

When I see my scales, I see armor.

I see a creature who knows how to protect herself.
I see a creature that has grown hard.
Inside, I am still soft with regret.
Inside, I am still soft with love.
It is love that propels me.
That pushes me against the current.
That reminds me to live.

30 31
 Sister Stars

When I sit on my rooftop

and gaze out onto the city,
I know that I am loved.
The stars embrace me
because I am part of them.
We are sisters, mothers, daughters.
We are one shimmering dust
gleaned from the universe
from lonely mirrors
from dry creek beds
from the undersides of leaves
and molded into our current form.
Tomorrow, I may be a star.
One century from now,
I may be a star.
I would hug and kiss a star now if
my current form allowed it.
But for now, I will sit on my rooftop
and admire my cousins
from afar.

32 33
Country Trysts and City Trysts

I thought living in the city

would render me anonymous.
Instead I became as known
as the tallest skyscrapers
and the most popular avenues.

In the country,
my trysts remained discreet.
My lovers and I took
to abandoned barns
and glittering cornfields
by winding creeks.

— continued

34 35
We nested in clouds of bamboo
and in nooks behind cascades.
Sometimes we climbed to the tops
of boulders,
overlooking swaths of virgin forest.
We made pilgrimages to bodily love
with no disciples or witnesses at all.
There were no Pharisees to judge us
until one day I moaned too loudly
in a barn that was not in fact abandoned.
Whores are not born.
The judging masses make them.
So when they christened me a whore,
I became a whore.
36
They christened me again in Manhattan.
It took many conference rooms
and executive suites,
but they christened me.
It’s what the judging masses do
to untamed women.
I could wander the desert alone
for 40 years
only to be christened again.
37
The Rarest Egg in the World

We married in the church with rose lilies.

We celebrated with blueberry jam and biscuits.
We pitched a tent in a meadow for our wedding night.
We made a day and we made a life for ourselves on our own.

I did not take your last name but I took your heart
and I clutch it as if it were the rarest egg in the world.
I will protect our love from any and all predators.
There are too many hungry for what we have built.
Even with its outer shell, that thing is fragile.
It must be nurtured; it must be kept warm.
I will nurture it; I will keep it warm.
Then it will thrive, then it will grow.
You will also nurture it; you will also keep it warm.
Because this is not a task I will assume alone.

38 39
 A Unity Poem for Women

This is a poem for all of the sluts.

This is a poem for all of the prudes.
This is a poem for all women with all bodies.
This is a poem for all women with all minds.
This is a poem for all women with all souls.

40 41
The Snail’s Way

If I could be any animal

I would choose the snail
because she approaches time with grace.
She does not berate it.
She does not assault it.
She allows time to
be time.

If I could be any emotion

I would not choose hope.
Because hope often begets impatience.

Snails are never impatient.

They pulse with life
but they wait.
They savor the moment
and they anticipate the next moment
without spoiling the current one.
When the moment hangs ripe,
they take a bite
and hold it in their snail mouths
to taste it
to know its texture
to observe a bite unlike any other.

42 43
 In the Owls’ Eyes

When the yellow-eyed owls perch

in the cactus outside my window,
I quake from fear of judgment.
Do even night birds judge me
for being an imperfect wife,
an imperfect mother,
an imperfect woman?

44 45
 Honeysuckles in Heaven

Heaven is a land with miles of

the sweetest honeysuckles
for my sisters and me to
harvest for no one but ourselves.
We never hunger and our cravings
are always satisfied by a single nibble,
though we prefer endless nibbles
in the soft sunshine, with a balmy breeze.

46 47
 A Subject in Her Son’s Kingdom

Darling, I’ve come to worship you.

Can’t you see all I’ve crocheted for you?
This layette is your castle.
This nursery is your kingdom.
I am but a humble servant
drained of all but love for you
after 24 hours of labor.
Open your eyes for a moment,
Your Tiny Majesty,
so that I may adore you.
All the other subjects tell me
that this is my God-given purpose,
though I have never met God
and sometimes I wish I were adored, too.

48 49
Rituals in Hope

Here is a candle
for an unforgiving wind.
When the wind knocks that stick of wax
to the gravelly ground,
I pick it up and set it right.

Here is a flame
for an unforgiving wind.
When the wind vanquishes that light,
I bring it back from the darkness,
from the dead.

These are not rituals in futility.

These are rituals in hope.

50 51
Love Letters on Leaves

You thought I might have written

a good-bye letter
on the underside of a leaf.
So you scoured the forest for
even the briefest explanation.
But you hunted in vain
because I left you nothing.
I loved you just long enough
to make your heart grow.
Then I left you and your heart
did not shrink.
Women are allowed to do it, too.

52 53
Naked in the Wilderness

I am naked in the window

when I wish on a star.
But as a wilderness-dweller,
I have no neighbors.
There is no audience.
I do not perform nakedness.
I am simply naked
for no one’s gaze
but God’s.

54 55
Raspberry on a Barn Board
Cavernous streets with haloed street lamps
I am the sole inhabitant of this city
Oh Father, who art in Heaven
I drank one gin and tonic, just one
That warehouse heaves the sighs of many ghosts
hallowed be your name
My nails could pierce my palms
It lacks windows like tortured men lack eyes
your kingdom come
I did not know hearts could beat this fast
The doors wear boards and signs that stop no squatter
your will be done
My stomach twirls and prances like a ballerina
on earth as in heaven
Did moving to the city grant me independence
or only the enduring weight of fear?
56
I remember the maze we cut through raspberry bushes
We squeezed the juices out of each other
as if we were smashing raspberries
because we were so thirsty
You were even thirstier
Sometimes I asked you to thirst less
but you still thirsted
You still squeezed
I became the smashed raspberry on a barn board
But you said you loved me
You said you loved me
In this moment, I would rather be trapped in that maze
with you, thirty miles from the nearest town,
than on the cracked sidewalks of this Bushwick street
At least a familiar terror is familiar
57
 Polaroids Pinned to an Apple Tree

We kissed beneath the dead apple tree,

relieving it from its solitude in the meadow.
A blight had bitten it long ago,
much as love had bitten us
half a century prior.

We are not too old for love, you and I.

Our souls are still our souls.
Even our changing bodies are still our bodies.
The apple tree, with all its bumps and holes,
remains an apple tree nonetheless.

For our tenth anniversary,

You bought an Instax and pinned
our Polaroids onto that apple tree
when it was as young and
flourishing as we were then.
The wind and rain eventually robbed
us of those faded Polaroids.
The tree blossomed another five
or six years after that.
Yet here I am, long after the Polaroids,
long after that last apple harvest,
biting your lower lip.

58 59
 The Girl and the Mite

When I saw my daughter seize a stone

from her perch in the abandoned barn,
I did not expect her to crush and smear
a mite onto a plank of mossy wood.

“Why did you do that?” I cried.

She shrugged and dropped the stone.
“Don’t you know that you are the mite?”

60 61
Seedling

Curl up your roots

and sit on my windowsill.
Sing to a dove.
Flirt with a squirrel.
That clay pot was
never your home.

I would uproot
myself, too,
if I could.

I would uproot
myself if my breasts
were not stones
weighing me down
in this river of a nursery.

I would uproot
myself if
the stitches stung
less than shooting stars
whose assigned wishes
never came true.

Seedling, you will grow up,

but I will only grow old
as only bitter mothers can.

62 63
Small Town Headline

A shrine for the girl who overdosed

in her Pepto-Bismol colored bathroom
bears late harvest fruit and wildflowers
on a chipped porcelain plate
at the edge of our one-horse town
This is not just a big city headline
It is a headline for places like here
where they say nothing ever happens
even though children die all the time
Did God simply stop watching us?

64 65
The Book of Shame

We read from the book

until it no longer served us.
This book was not written
for our constellation of scars.
This book was not written
for our deep well of pain,
a well so deep that it grazes
the Earth’s murmuring core.

We are not ashamed to bleed.

It is our pain but also our power.
We are not ashamed to ache.
We must suffer to delight in
moments of sunshine.

We have closed the book.

We may re-read it again one day,
but only to study the past,
not to follow its veins
to a heart that does not beat for us.

66 67
Dripping Down Your Chin

Love the terror that erupts inside of you

the instant you suck the juices from forbidden fruit
because the next moment, you will erupt with joy
when you discover they lied

68 69
 Not My Grandmother’s Granddaughter

I could never order mushrooms on my pizza

because my grandmother killed herself
by eating handfuls of death caps
when the man she loved
did not love her back.

She marched to the woods on

a windy October evening,
battling fog with her flashlight
as she hunted for her poison.

My infant mother was frozen in her crib

when my grandfather found her
the day he returned wide-eyed from war.
The child was too weak from hunger to cry.

Two days earlier,

her mother blacked out
on a bed of worms and damp leaves.

I love no man like that.

70 71
 Cutting Peaches in the Snow

I hunger not for casseroles and chowders

as I survey the blankets of snow on the fields,
I hunger for fresh fruit.
The farms of my childhood are empty,
but the supermarkets —
fed by factory farms —
burst with food that Nature would
forbid us to feast on come winter.
Would if she could,
but she has been overpowered.
That is why I scurry into the supermarket
like a ravenous beast.
I paw at peaches and stuff them down my blouse.
There is no sense in paying what should be free.
Am I not already a woman who pays for so much?
Making 77 cents for every dollar that a man earns,
I am the big-breasted underdog.
I just want to eat peaches.
The supermarket owner wants to eat my breasts.
My breasts are mine, but are the peaches really his?
This is the logic that leads me to cut peaches in the snow.
I whip out my pocketknife and sever two peaches
before deciding to eat the rest whole.
I am the woman gulping down peaches in the parking lot.
I just want to have something natural;
it doesn’t have to be normal.

72 73
Brazil, Age 12 to 17

When I was young,

I straddled high lines as a trapeze artist.
I summoned street children with my antics
and beckoned them to take shelter.
You do not have to live in slums,
I cooed, knowing that I spewed propaganda.
If it were easy to have a roof,
why did these children live in alleyways?
Why did they sleep on benches?
Why did they befriend adults who
wanted more than friendship?

I never asked these questions aloud

because I was hungry,
because I might’ve been a street child
if it had not been for an observant aunt
who realized my father was molesting me.
I still bear the strange scars of a strangled girl.
I still remember humid nights in my father’s lap.

— continued

74 75
Even after you put on the spandex leotard,
you do not forget. You do not forget
because you have been tapped as a savior.
Hot breath is still hot breath.
Choking is still choking.
Hunger is still hunger.
Perfecting a sordid art form
does not remove the sordidness
from an imperfect childhood.
Some children run away to the circus,
but the circus is no real escape.
You are still a freak.
You are still the weird child,
the child who was lusted after
but never loved unconditionally.
There are always conditions with sex.
You never lived in a box.
You never lived in an alleyway.
Yet when your mother died, those possibilities
became actual possibilities in a world of possibilities.
You rejected those possibilities less out of choice
than out of desperation and coercion.
76
Leotards are not meant to be comfortable.
Leotards are meant to accentuate
all that a good Catholic girl learns is sinful.
Breasts are sinful. Hips are sinful.
Round little butt cheeks are sinful.
Sinful. Sinful. Sinful. Sinful.
It becomes a shameful chant
unless you reclaim it as a mantra.
No journalist writes about a street circus
unless it is an exposé
of animal abuse, perhaps child abuse
if caring about brown children
is currently en vogue.
Were you brown enough to merit the attention?
You were a poor girl, but was that enough?
Did anyone mind your tears?
Or question why you owned a wardrobe of leotards?
— continued
77
 A nice white lady from Connecticut might
say that girls like you deserve scholarships.
“It’s such a shame that no one gave you a scholarship.”
But where would that have taken you?
Harvard? Yale? Arizona State?
How do girls like you graduate from college
when you are so broken?
There is no SAT or ACT for molested children.
No one really wants to read a college essay
about what truly hurts.
So instead of going to college,
instead of succumbing to a white savior,
you pull on your glitter tights
and join the circus.
78
Favela streets everywhere smelled of rot,
the same as your pre-teen heart.
You asked your ringleader if
the smell ever dissipates
and he said it will stain
your underwear for life.
But maybe some of the street children
would listen? Would crawl out of their shells of fear?
Would join your circus? Would find joy in childish pleasures?
All you know is that you had to put on the leotard.
The leotard was your ticket, your escape.
The circus became your first real shelter.
You are far from the jungle now.
You are far from the beast.
79
A Universe Illuminated by Love

Loving you like the moon loves the stars is not

weakness.
The moon pulls the tide, controlling oceans and
empires.
The moon embodies strength and I embody love
and I will not be told that love is not strength.
Because when I see the stars, I see their strength.
I see that bonds of love illuminate the universe.

80 81
Crab Sisters

My fingers grew into crab claws first

Then my whole body followed suit
from crab eyes to crab toes
But this exoskeleton has already proven
to be too fragile
This is not the sea creature I would’ve chosen
At least you are a crab, too

Our crab legs are so many

Maybe we can just scuttle away
Or we can dig up mud
because they forbade it for so long

Yes, dig with me

Dig with me
Dig with me
Scuttle and dig and swim
The current is not too strong
Swimming in and out of kelp
feels like freedom
until you get tangled
until you get caught

They say an undersea parasite can

render a male mud crab female
Is that the male mud crab’s worst fear?
He could not burrow a deeper hole

82 83
The Forest Fish
His rage became a recurring theme.
When he seized my shoulders,
He unleashed his tentacles and I
his talons pierced my flesh
swam in and out of shadows to my reef.
and grazed my bones.
My refuge there was always temporary.
My marrow shuddered.
You cannot escape an octopus.
But there came a day when his tentacles
tightened to the point of stunning me.
I scampered to the woods
He twisted my lungs until I fainted.
with my tail between my legs,
I woke up to him filling my body,
proclaiming myself unworthy.
rising and falling as he admired
That first blow was the last blow.
the rhythm of his rampage.
We will have our kingdom by the sea
as long as I bow my head and behave.
I froze until he finished and collapsed
on the mattress. He breathed
The jagged trees became coral
so peacefully while he slept
beneath waves of moonlight.
that I knew I could slip into
I tried to rule over my reef
the woods, into the sea, undetected.
but I could not even rule myself.
I swam to my reef and then
When he whistled from the porch,
past it. Never stop swimming.
I followed the North Star home.

84 85
Lady Menarche

I folded myself into a corner by the dollhouse

and imagined myself tucked in the miniature kitchen.
Somehow I knew I would not enjoy the dollhouse for much longer.
The tiny pots and pans had already started to lose their appeal.
When I lost the bitty rubber bacon and the bitty rubber toast,
I briefly questioned if my hamster had taken them during his
latest escape but did not bother looking high and low.
Losing those little toy foods felt like another ending,
though I could not fathom how or why until . . .

My underwear felt warm and wet but not all over.

Had I peed myself?
I was ten, twice the excusable age for that.
But I saw no other explanation.
I was sitting on a dry carpet.
I did not rise immediately, but when I did,
I darted to the bathroom to kill the suspense.
My underwear’s crotch pad was red.
I had learned what this was,
but I was ten, just wrapping up fifth grade.
Wasn’t this something that happened to teenagers?

I stumbled down the hall to find my mother.

She clapped her hands at the news.
“I dub thee Lady Menarche,”
she said and held up the Renaissance festival dress
she was sewing. “Maybe I should make one for you.”
I shook my head.
“Do you want cake instead?”
I nodded and wrung my hands.
“I always want cake when I’m on my period.”
I nodded again and hugged her.

86 87
The Prudent Puffin

I asked the puffin to sing for me.

Instead, she wept in her nest.
She told me that she never sings.
She stares out from her roost,
over the cliffs at a restless sea
and clucks anxiously
until she regains the courage
to fly with the gulls,
who fear neither hissing clam
nor scraggly rock
nor delirious sailor.

“I’m so scared to leave home,”

she whimpered.
“Too frightened to join the world.”

— continued

88 89
 I did not touch the startled creature,
knowing she does not favor touch,
and said,
“Pump those wings, Puffin.
Pump them hard.
You are stronger
than you know —
as strong as those gulls,
maybe stronger.”
Too prudent to try in that moment,
the puffin waited a beat.
The wind swept the beach
and the gulls’ cries carried on
their endless soundtrack.
90
The puffin knew her power,
but sometimes forgot.
She forgot that she had
wrestled a squid and
herded sizeable schools of shrimp.
When she finally pumped
her wings and rose from her roost,
she flew toward the sun
and into the sun
and beyond the sun
because she had fire and was fire.
when her nest was nothing but ice.
91
About the Author
Christine Sloan Stoddard is a Salvadoran-Scottish-
American writer and artist who lives in Brooklyn. She is
the founding editor of Quail Bell Magazine, an art and
culture magazine. Stoddard is also the author of Naomi
and the Reckoning (Black Magic Media), Jaguar in the
Cotton Field (Another New Calligraphy), Hispanic &
Latino Heritage in Virginia (The History Press), Ova
(Dancing Girl Press), Chica/Mujer (Locofo Press),
Lavinia Moves to New York (Underground Voices), The
Eating Game (Scars Publications), and two miniature
books from the Poems-For-All series.
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