1.
This is how my grandma tells the story:
Over two thousand years ago the world
was divided into heavy & light
& in the gap the souls of loved ones wandered
because they missed their beloveds
They couldn’t get into paradise so became
dybbuks maligned as evil spirits
entering female hosts who spoke
in voices unlike their own
2.
Over time the hosts’ voices sounded
more like the dybbuks who possessed them
& the women learned how to spontaneously
invite dybbuks into their own bodies—
a kind of possession considered
most powerful—sod ha’ibbur—
Hebrew for mystery impregnation
3.
The night my grandma’s friend Estelle
turns eighteen she finds a gauzy garment
slung over a chair in the light of a full moon
slips it on & suddenly she’s crawling
with low beams of light at the bottom of the sea
becoming water—her body’s blue-green
dissolving so she can’t breathe—
almost chokes—then out of nowhere
a spark illuminates her heart
& her spirit glows like an x-ray
4.
After she breaks the water’s surface she returns
to the world to do & say what she’d always been
forbidden—gets a job & pursues a college degree
My grandma accepts an arranged marriage
not bold enough to invite a dybbuk
but Estelle is her guiding star
whom she admires from afar
5.
When I turn eighteen my grandma implores me:
Teach yourself to get out of the curve
of the mirror—make every story your own—
& the part of you that never speaks will speak
& you’ll be seen & believed
Invite a dybbuk to inhibit you because of your struggles
not in spite of them—a dybbuk who turns the wheel
of the Muse into song, memory & desire
while burning a holy wind that embodies
the charm of the unseen—potent
as a red ribbon in a baby’s mouth
6.
I ignore the dybbuk for years then return
to its electric blue tongue prodding me
to follow my own voice & weave words that sing
7.
Before my daughters turn eighteen I tell them
that whatever they do not understand
has intrinsic meaning
& when they taste what is holy
they can trust water trust vine
& trust tailfeather
always save what remains
8.
This is not starvation but revisionist magic
lace on the back of my hands
& their great-grandma’s fingertips
Grasping white birds ink their faces
Release begins with capture & intent is everything
Now the dybbuk is metaphorical & my girls
possess their own magic
9.
I don’t ask what happens
when they become afraid
Instead I ask, Of what are you made?
Of what are you brave?
–
Susan Michele Coronel lives in New York City. Her first full-length collection, “In the Needle, A Woman,” won the 2024 Donna Wolf Palacio Poetry Prize, and is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including MOM Egg Review, Redivider, One Art, North Dakota Quarterly, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Thimble. In 2023, she won the Massachusetts Poetry Festival’s First Poem Award, and her work has received two Pushcart nominations. Ms. Coronel holds an M.S. Ed in Applied Linguistics from the City University of New York (Queens College) and a B.A. in English from Indiana-University Bloomington.
© 2024, Susan Michele Coronel
Halfway Down the Stairs 