What my mom said

You were born into the arms of wonder

of wonder who i am without all these children

or wonder what i could have been without all this marriage

or wonder will i ever know myself 

will i ever be free from the pain of molestation

of pain i didn’t ask for but felt was my fault because i stayed still

because i stayed quiet 

because i stayed breathing in time

with a clock

at the edge of the table

at the edge of the bed

of the bed of my father’s father

pain.

pain.

pain was born inside my body before i knew how to spell it.

pain was scathed from one unhappy hand to another before i knew how to break it

pain moved from his hand to my chest and i felt it

forever

burning inside my blood 

carried inside my breasts

inside the milk

that spilled when my child needed her drink. 

i held her and promised that nothing bad—to her— would happen 

like it happened 

like it happened

like it happened to me. 

All of my life, I’ve been after the fact 

protecting the knot from exposing my darkness

from exposing the rot that i asked for, forgot

and the older i get, the older it is, and i can not grow from the place i was shot. 

I’m lower now into the grave

my father, at his age in a haze of confusion, 

i dare not release 

what i know he should have seen

but did not 

did not

did not

Now that my son has a daughter

I feel it beginning all over again

I want to reach out 
branch over state lines and shade her
from splintering crimes 
committed by lonely, broken men

I want to start over again. 
In her eyes I’m divine 

she doesn’t know

I’m broken somehow
deeper than i know how to go

deeper than i’ll ever show

i want to be a sheltering tree 
for the daughters that come

for the daughters that come

after me. 

take me home to grace 

take me!
save me a space

i fill all my pockets with sage

i found a god, call him Father

call him better, call him judgment day

call him saving place, call him heaven

call it no place for people like you—like him—

See the scars on my heart make it hard to distinguish you from him

i’m never sure
never sure
never sure 

even my own husband can only touch me sweetly some of the time

mostly it’s tin foil in tin fingers down the lining of my tummy 

but as his wife, i befriend it

the shadow of abuse

the darkening the sky

builds, sprouting seeds in the throat

a volatility, a rage, a parade of malpractice

of dark

of heavy 

of clouds that wrap around and around

they never believed us, until now

until now

until now 

In the rain, i hold my granddaughter, rocking

In the spring, we will kill what winter did not