When offspring were issue, they were blank tickets

-women hid them, surreptitious, behind their shoulders-

but the eldest of course, that wasn’t your choice.

That was in their polished hands, their pouring legs.




Boys with raucous claim tore whole thrones asunder,

girls in their raw places to bear them more sons,

becoming mothers with laden arms,

bathing in their blood.




Vitality is stamped, tattooed on the womb

and then christened: go anywhere, but leave.

Worse still, if she were a dry well:

groaning chasms of grief.