Born the eldest daughter
of a youngest daughter

in a country of closing doors.
My mother was a newcomer.

I emerged a tether
-less, violent hiss

of becoming, staring winter
straight in the mouth. Fist-

hearted and hunting.
Something shocked me into the shape

of girl. I tore at the pearls around my neck
and sang my body into lone

mercy. I believed I was no one’s daughter,
that every edge against which

I had been wounded was another
country’s fugitive dawn.

I witnessed the eloquence
of my treachery pulling at my blood

like a furious tide. I took to my face
like a practiced performer

inheriting routine, inhaling
a halo of lights,

white as my reckoning,
white: for a long time

I believed I was nothing
but, my asymmetry

a factory defect, a disclaimer
I couldn’t manage to pronounce.

I mastered the art
of deflection, of hiding

my kin, embodying the color of my skin.
You couldn’t call me

sinner. In my country—
in my country (I repeat)

I was glorified meat,
white man’s legacy

inviting all manner of gawking.
I swore off sowing

the seeds of my so-called blessing.
I got sick.

There is no story to tell.
My mind off-axis, fixated

on its own imbalance.
I confessed my name into

every mouth’s hollow,
found myself drowning in rot

and deemed it forgotten
hunger for all my lost hours.

I tore seams. I mended other ones.
I took inventory. My life

a dress I refused to wear, hem unraveling
in the warmth of my hand.