In 1929, thirty-four women were arrested in the Hungarian region of Tiszazug under suspicion of poisoning their abusive husbands and other male relatives with arsenic. Several of the women cited Zsuzsanna Fazekas, a midwife in the town of Nagyrév, as the source of the arsenic, said to be extracted from boiled flypaper.

they will take everything you offer,

claw away if they sense there is more

until you are known, a bored routine.

so guard it deeply. do not form it

into words.

II.

in my language, there is

pessimism, and there is survival. I do not

use it to speak, but it is in my blood, like

how to boil flypaper.

III.

it is a whispered knowledge,

passed down through matriarchs.

you refused to leave the house your hands built,

lime green walls and chickens long gone.

each time you kissed me, the hairs on your chin tickled me.

they became my feelers, imparting sensory information I'd never experienced

a temporary aphasia so the knowing can

sneak past language and take residence

in my spine, in the curve of my back,

aching.

IV.

when you were four,

you lost your voice. for a year you

did not speak. as he beat her, your

sound left you.

when you pull a loose thread and wrap it

around your finger, sometimes you

cannot break it. it grows until you can

find a blade to cut.

Hello, tesék?

Mondjad.

Your words withered the men who called.

I felt fear for them, and turned away from your intensity.

But I was never scared of you.

I reminded you of your sister.

She was kind and drew flowers for children. But I want

to growl like you, leave ashes in my dust.

VI.

six of you with

heads down, hands

clasped, as if ashamed or

remorseful. I know better.

I see your pointed fingers,

defiant. they know they

are next.