UNTITLED

i’ve been whispered to
told secrets by brown girls who
grit teeth as greeting
who split open at night
and sew shut in day and
wish they were seen and
wish they weren’t seen
and wish they weren’t
seen as chasms as canyons
to be walked through and
explored with steel toe
and pick axe surveyed by
an adventurer’s eye a conquerer’s
boot and dirty nail
on the foothold and grip of

i’ve been whispered to
told desires of being more
than halved mountain
and chipped stone
and erosion and drought and
flood and seismic
shift and quake and bolt
being more than mishap
missed or misses target
practice for phallus
fashioned as god

and i call my mother
ask her if i can confide in her with
the secrets i’ve been told if i can
lay my broken rules upon her breast
this rock of my family
this rock of mine
and all she says is to remember
to knock the dust off my hands
before i come to her table