I am from

Stars that reel

Around boundless skies

In tendrils

Of pin-poked light holes

That throb like minute heart beats;

Inside the womb

Of a half-eaten night

 

I am from

Dust that flickers and fans

In tawny ribbons

Of bright-eyed sunbeams;

Dashing through

The cosmos

On muted, buoyant feet

 

I am from

Last night’s bed,

The evening’s disciple,

And an edgy, mislaid colloquy

On a hung-over, half-bred morning;

Drinking coffee

In the shade of spirits long deceased

 

 I am from

The profit (and the pain) of lying in the childbed

Markedly callow and unwitting;

Striving to digest the enormity

Of something so ostensibly small

And helpless

 

I am from

The shards of shattered fables;

Swept up into handfuls of jagged debris

And emptied into the refuse

Of a one parent domicile

 

I am from

A chronicle of womanly resolve

Wound into snaky veins

That traverse the backs of hands

And legs

As we voyage from blue collars,

To white collars,

To rainbow sprinkles

On the tiptoes of an unbreakable dream