this, too is hers:

stories that seethe in the blood: a lion that slumbers in the copper pillar of her body. ferocious with color, the words flood together in her veins. songs chiseled to the meter of swans cord into muscled claws. a fanged maw kneads into shape, sculptured from the concept of zero. a river of chants: to wield thunder, to hurtle fire, to dam death, thread into a mane.

she waits, tongue gnawed through, stub salted with scars, for the next time you rap her shoulder. ask if God breathes in her too. maybe this time she’ll fracture open. maybe her chest will crack and organs crumble as her history erupts. roars and wrenches you into its silk-furred lap. she’ll watch the hooks of its mountain-made palms rip you open from navel to throat. to see what kind of god bleeds in you.