i forget i am anyone 
but my mother. lineage convolts
around the tendons of my neck,
leeching the milk-white of bone
until my bones become muzzles
that bottle the howls of black dogs. to salvage 
the wilderness venn-diagrammed between 
the ribs of myself and my mother, i choke
my reflection and sew its throat 
together to stuff it with screams feeding
the frothing mouths of hounds.

…

my mother tows away skin from her 
antiquated thumbs, into oars like pistachios.
let me be more raw like my hands, she says. 
but to be raw like a mother is to never bear daughters
when they march adrift; to be raw is to sever hearts
and let blood weep warm out of veins;
to be raw is to carve a patchwork roof
using cartilage to shelter sons.

in Chinese, pistachios are called
kaixinguo — happiness fruits.
but they are neither happy nor fruit. 
they are birthed out of their shells
i am not happiness nor fruit nor mother;
only carefully extracted.

i am extraction;
a leech of the full moon
of my mother’s womb, peeled
into halves to exist on my own
without shell.

… 

when you feel my body, you feel the bruises 
of my foremothers. i am statue
and i am vessel and i am everything
but myself. in reverence i will be mangled
into a bitter shrine. i never asked for this body,
but i am not curse or needle or shears. 
to be sacred is to water
myself until i grow into someone i’ll forget;
but for my mother to ingrain an altar within me 
is to burn a dozen forgettable fires and to let veins 
uproot for nameless sons.

… 

mothers do not bear daughters;
mothers bear their own bodies