Blackbird Archive← v21n2, Fall 2022Poetry · Volume 21, Number 2
The Blood’s Unwritable Psalm
My body is just the story it tells
in order to be true. The moon goes on
enlarging the ballad of its fall, pretending
it’s innocent as a cloak
draped over a virgin’s shoulders. I was once
virginal before I was tangible, and my voice
swaddled me in what I’ve learned to call
refrain. If I’d been born in the shape of
a boy, I might have been
named after trees so old
they are only the sounds we make for them.
