Afterbirth

Second child is branded daughter. Vulvae coated in gothic

fluids and brine dressing her skull. Nimble, an infant’s sinuses

reach out and tilt the sun into her gums. Spittle, retching

bulging, spooled from resin; fangs grasping at a fallen

pinecone. A nurse with bruised eyelids swabs moon-shadow

underneath her molars. White-swathed uniform, lime

bowler hat. Stethoscope unravelling from moleskin. A study

adapts the role of furnace, breeding brethren into starlight.

I was born teething on betel leaf, immolating scuffed

sneaker- soles on turf. Child of industrialism, sipping lighter

fluid out of a dentist’s day cup. Caramel choking on my

braces: a flash of violet, growing up with the taste

of a ruffian’s embers on my tongue. I cough up my incisors

into a bedside container. Paint the oak red. Sear my knuckles

hurt. Bite my lip bloody, and blind the metal’s aftertaste.

My rosary stained, its beads breaking by the wayside.

I learn that rough edges bleed quickly. That splinters are

to be pulled back, jabbed at with a sob. So a grave,

becomes a belly, becomes a child; clawing herself

into the earth. So a midwife is a passage to godhood.

This bay, is where a city’s daughters come of age, breathing

cigarette smoke into a storefront promenade. This sand,

is where a godmother shapes her nipping progeny.

This land, is where a fledgling urchin takes flight.