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.
