Rotten Rib

The simple truth of being an egg inside your grandmother doesn't allow for exploitation, power, or war. Unsatisfied with the earthly miracle of birth in plain sight, man created the invisible.

There’s a bitter thaw of spring
flash floods flush into a silver sting
She kissed the top of my head, she said
baby you’ll return, learn to hold your breath
call it instinct
I got her purple nailbeds
numb trembling hands
from a hot-tempered man

worms don’t need warnings to know the ways the sun can sting
I was a single cell cradled inside two bodies,1963
Julie held her belly and laughed at her reflection
until she held her belly and cursed at her reflection
while she carried both my mom and me
encapsulated in her frozen dopamine
then the adrenaline rush, the threat of what
warmer weather would bring

Cowboy Wayne was all thawed out
He drew two tally lines, to add to his count
first, the woman, then the girl
But I, single cell, safely burrowed

I tilled through the earthly cathedral of she who carried me
gave the ridge of my face, swam the fluid of my spine
The world she shut her eyes to
Is the world where I opened mine
and all that yearning for a little decency in-between
Embedded into me is a red string
She quietly holds the thread
ignoring death, and continues to weave

I’m no last name, nor rotten rib
closer to the blood its wasted
than his symbols and superstitions
closer to the nameless, borderless soil
or the wind that rips it
than his tattered flag, just ask
statues of men killing for lies
bored of the harmony, hungry for their slice
unsatisfied with earthly lifegivers
hushed the miracle of birth in plain sight
just ask
Cowboy Wayne, who got his fill of power, I’m sure
oh wait, he’s nothing but bones in the dirt