I carry the full moon in my womb
as I walk onto my own battlefield,
Mother says, Don’t you know girls grow inside grenades?
I watched her crawl forth from the wreckage on hands and knees,
a daughter crawling head-first out of
the blasted hollow of her home.
Girlhood grows around cyanide
and daughters metamorphose into
their mothers; it sounds like the crack
of a whip against dry bone ready for
kindle.
I followed Mother into the pit of
exile as a fresh girl, sanguine and blameless.
I followed the white rabbit.
Mother’s horror is a mirror
and I now own her trauma like
a trophy,
a haunted heirloom beating inside
like a second heart.
Get it out of me.
