Ants Win the Argument
Arguing
takes little bits of me
that I’m not sure I’ll get back…
eventually the bits and bits
and more bits
will take all of me…
maybe over time – years – they
might result in increased understanding
but are the bites worth it
when I no longer exist?
Bites like an ant might take to
traverse the long journey to its nest
to be added to the collective –
Bites to make them whole.
Birth Mother
The rumbling of hunger, a flint to strike
the sharp-burn in fingers and toes and curl
of back. Swarms of red ants on teeth waiting to bite,
fights with friends and workmates and lovers the pop
and splintering of self resulting in an aftermath of isolation.
The copper taste of primal need–
what is it with birth mothers who hold the string to my puppet heart
dangling me here and there but never where I want to go. She: holding
agency on her shame, the sparks of blame fed by lies, a raging fire
severing ties with birth sisters and birth brothers and birth aunts
and culture, her own child’s diminishing brownness and her obliviousness
of her insidious control. But maybe she does know and her power,
a shield against the corrosion of truth.
Will she ever call my name?
Hereditary Sin
An eagle flies by unfettered but wait, it’s an enormous white-fringed raven. Yet the adult-child
yearns for the eagle, its white-shrouded exquisiteness. Its Notice. It’s not like people don’t notice
ravens. They are plentiful, more common. A nuisance, however, with their nail-like demand for
attention, like the child born out of wedlock of old, the cross cracked and blackened with shame.
The child who fluffs up in the cold, becomes big, her hurt buried inside to drip red, like
hereditary sin, like murder. Ravens gather to gawk and spread guilt. When the child’s birth
mother dies, everyone will die with her. The adult-child, now a homewrecker, is stuffed into the
adulterers back pocket. The eagle’s scream is muffled. A raven is often mistaken for a crow.
After/Thought Literary 