After Tarfia Faizullah’s Hidden Registers

She winces at taboo, the same way
she looks at empty ultrasounds.

The ache

inside the hollowed curve of her
womb, she imagines carrying color

to fill

translucent dreams. Her hand paints
spells onto her stomach, she wants

to believe again. That split
a girl finds between her legs,

the wonder

it first captured, she wants newborn pink
on her cheeks and unmoving lips.

The pout her ******* makes,
rises in swells under the moon,

to feel

that luminous glow. She holds
out, the palms of her hands,

for alms. Comets ricochet into her,
until her breath slows to sleep. She is still,

the woman

inside her is quiet, laying in wait.
They dream of seeds and sunrises.


A. T. Bockholdt