The Rupture Of Membranes

for frankie, 

for God's sake, not every bleeding hurts - ma says “some tastes 

like pineapple juice when the blood is

leaking from your mouth.”  i know she meant Yeshua’s blood that 

has been turned into wine.

yesterday, your blood traveled faster than water in your body,

it dug itself into the folded skin that held your child in your navel.

& because your water breaking never came, 

so the doctor split you wide open like a dried wood

bouncing off the sharpness of an axe. 

because there are several techniques in giving birth to a child that still love

the softness of his mother’s body, 

the doctor slashed & slashed till you were empty 

of the heaviness that sat in your womb.

that means your child was  lifted from

 the soft burns of your stomach. 

that means your opened body was sewed back into 

the soft cotton of emptiness & fibers - then  into 

scars like maps drawn on your stomach

 to later show your son his first home.

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Cover photo by Bernadetta Watts