I am not sure which is bloodier, more gruesome –
birth or death. It is like asking God if he prefers Eve to Adam
for demolishing that false sense of security,
specks of pride dissolved in snake venom apples.
There is mourning in creating monsters
as there is in killing them: I see starving children with
round, pregnant bellies and somehow they are more at peace than
I am on my best day. We will understand when we are dead,
not in the act of becoming a ghost, but once we are one.

When I was little, I saw the house on Camellia’s corner
crumble: attacked from behind, the same swamp I had in mine.
I had not noticed its yellow shingles before
and suddenly, this nine year old girl felt lonely for
bricks and plaster and the refrigerator hung on its balcony door.
On its side like a woman in labor –
midwives have her in a kiddy pool, the origin of its
name. Imagine being baptized before you take your first breath.

Ametrine is an amalgamation of two gemstones:
amethyst and citrine. I am that of my parents, one quarter grandma.
She who I never met but got my alcoholic mother from.
My clumsiness stemmed there, the constant
stumbling on invisible rocks and breeding ****** knees –
having two daughters who bleed monthly, but it’s never in sync.
Still, I cannot grasp being proud of ghostliness  
when there are millions of invisible children in clear blood.