I am done with loving
someone else. The world does not need
another felled daughter, her parched heartwood
scavenging for a father’s water
in men decades later. Like I did. Twice
in a row.
I gave enough life to him
that he dispersed his seed
to another womb.
Gave enough to him, too,
to sprout wall-shattering roots, clove-hitch ‘round me
before crossing back home to the woman
who halved their god-licked pillar with a thief’s obelisk.
Everywhere inside me water swells now.
Enough
riptides to know:
you don’t fuck with dead guys
without reeking like a corpse.
Enough
tears to no longer mother
broken hims
while they leave me fathered.
Enough
rain to start a flood
and turn a desert, including mine,
into a spring.
This was first published in The Hooghly Review’s Issue 3 on April 20, 2024.
