What Yields

The day we were born, we belonged to you.

These clay-sculpted women—yours. There is no

respite to offer—such exquisite wrongs do

remain. Our vulvas: the future you wrote

you—slick as butter. So yours, we wonder

if the saliva in our mouths is still

ours. We’re denied water to protect sutures.

My parched tongue circles for wisps

of spit. You could leave me this one thing. Thief,

all night you drink water from my body.

All night you drink water from my body.

You sneak from your bed, taking the worn way

toward the wood shack over the chickweed

and white clover. We call it shack. You say,

falls aside like a pansy, then you call

for the water in my body to rise.

Come up, you sing. Dizzied and stunned I watch

it rising like so many beads of wine.

In the mornings I am bare. I am shut.

I am dead where I lie, already plucked.

I am dead where I lie, already plucked.

Yet all afternoon, sir, I have risen

up out of this whiteness—out of its touch

I come and though my mind is dim

I will say no, split your trembling lip by

my refusal. I’ve been longing to see

the rush of blood to your mouth, your pink lie

distended, the flush of blood to your cheeks.

I’ve been reaching for the surface to show

what my fists can do. My eyes reach for you

out of reach. I am too much to feel, too

impossible to be known. All afternoon

Bodies above virtue are never black:

sprawling dewberries grow along your fence;

since most days we are hungry, we take

them—fill hemp sacks we hide against our hips.

When each bite unravels in our mouths

we imagine a sweeter history

and more hope than you could ever allow.

Desperate, we gorge on dewberries—

the heady berries and our molars’ slow

grinding drown out the distant cries of

thief. Crushed berry over berry over

berry, this joy—the closest thing to love.

Our bodies taut in their sheets, locked in place,

calculating your restraint. We keep our

breath, waiting. Then you begin your complaint:

we aren’t trying to heal. Unchecked urine

in our wet beds instead of the waste pail.

Piss compromises the stitches and we

know it. And how many times must you tell

us to lie still? You leave us. There will be

no dosage today. The held cries lift.

First, you’d have to consider us women.

First, you’d have to consider us women,

realize our hearts beat under the bush.

You’d have to think my heart longed like yours

and that my mind wasn’t mindless, awash

with nothing. I am a hot quaking body—

prime material subject. To you,

I am only worth what can be gleaned.

And you would have to know I meet the pain

how your wife would: imagine her blushed pink

frame, gap-legged like a birth-slick colt, quaking.

But you cannot hold both of us in mind

at once. My ability to bear is

immeasurable. Pain discriminates.

Material subject—I am rabbit.

Material subject. I am rabbit.

I skitter the path to crooked river,

scratch up the perfect stones and carry them

to my litter and when they clamor to nurse—

their soft seeking nostrils nudging my teats—

I beat their bodies, stoned against the rocks

I trample, crush red skulls, dash. Panting

blood into the grass, their buff fur bodies

set in an array of poses, the weeds

bowed down, draining blood that will not cry out.

My babies sink into the ground, drowning.

I am only fit to be without.

I swallow the last stones. Your shadow looms.

Now, the whole earth has turned to look at you.

Now, the whole earth has turned to look at you.

And we see the gray hairs curling out of

your nose. We nod off like pine trees as you

stitch. Always sighing, you hover

over us. Fool, we know you will never

be done, though you promise promise promise

it will work this time. We’ve grown wiser

to your kindness. We watch you thread our missed

days and nights. Your needle unmends our seams.

Silk? Catgut? You should have known the catgut

would fester. How careless can you be?

Did your dumb mama drop you dumb? You smug

reckless thief. The whole earth can hear you breathe.

Even the clouds agree: we’re dead where we sleep.

Even the clouds agree: we’re dead where we sleep.

Between sleep and waking my gaze follows

yours as you scan the room of destiny.

Picking through the moss of your mind so

carefully, you decide who you will heal

today. Your hair has grown gray right above

the ears, you could be a wren standing near,

shifting foot to foot in the door, nervous.

you compose, and yes, we will render it.

We are rotting fruit, yet our bodies yield.

We are rotting fruit, yet our bodies yield.

How easily we yield to you, for you.

We slide into our poses, blossoming.

You examine our stalks for blight, mildew

and rust. One morning your eyes examine

the field and we are ripe. Through sixteen

seasons you have tended us, kept us tilled

and well-drained. You’ve cultivated after each

rain and sewed crimson clover in the rows

between us. Not one boll weevil has stained

our leaves. With care, you have nourished the soil.

And now, the time has come for you to claim

the crop that you’ve sewn. Your harvest will be.

We must yield, even if you lie to reap.

We must yield, even if you lie to reap.

Untuck the lie from the roof of your mouth

and set it free. If you write it, it will be.

It will set right the frown on your wife’s

lips, make it worth it. Is it worth it?

Her unspoken question, she doesn’t see

what wealth can be gained from digging into

an empty woman. She never believed

it was mending when she heard wails sound

their way up to the house, sounds like rabbits

dying she’d said, but never fixed her mouth

to help us. Write history, it will be.

Try out the words in your mouth. We’re healed.

The day we were born we belonged to you.