fragmented bit of heaven, half-arced

gleam of fishback, slippery as you slipped

from the liar’s mouth. listen: your name is

the spell i cast when i flung myself

off the earth, straining to carry the weight

of six brothers and sisters. don’t you understand

that to be a woman in this world is to be

descended from a lineage of pain? o salt-

frilled crack of earth, long-limbed hymn

of love milled into a vessel for us to pour

our forgetting into. and now you think you

know more than me because you grow fat

like an estuary in this land of plenty. listen:

when you slice the root from any wildland spell

and plant it in this strange soil, no one can predict

what will uncurl from that sprouted tongue.

didn’t i tell you this already? the Law of Names

is trickster magic. a bolo knife, a hunger pain:

it has more than one way to bring you to your knees.