She picks at the brown kink thick
Between her thighs, her middle
Finger and thumb twisting rope
Across the bald spot where his kink
Became her kink.
She is not god’s –
White bones hanging from a hairless tree,
An omen of her kink & blood.
She is the crinkled white that men
Sleep on after they have gone limp.
In a few months, she will give birth
To a shapeless child with no name
And they will say,
“We should also take the womb.”
Across many waters, a white flag will fold
Itself into the wind & disappear.
She remembers that her mother
Was the color of dirty water,
Limbs made of wood and black-oiled grace.
She hid cut white ash & un-anointed skin
Between her thighs and prayed demons
Off of one pig and unto another:
Swine will not touch one of mine.
A different god will tell her
That her mother was an empire unto herself —
But all gods lie to children in adult bodies
And don’t tell them that even empires
Have cracks in them that kink & bleed.