birth is my mother’s original sin.
mama the first country i left in a flurry of blood,
mother, the first country i called home.
the womb is not eden, or maybe it is:
a garden of dark and buried things.
in my dreams i am fat as an apple.
i squat in the field
behind my childhood home.
i give birth to a daughter
i name after myself.
in the morning there is blood
on my sheets, ink on a blank page. who will grant
me penance in my old age? daughter, forgive me
i say into the mirror. there is milk between my thighs.
like the women before me,
i only wanted to grow
a country in my womb.