Based on a true story. REally. And not about cannibals, either.

Genesis

born dead from a dead mother
I crawled out from the still pulsing purple
womb and screamed before anyone could
touch me

I had words then
a few choice curses for God, but the doctor
pretended not to hear and the nurses all
turned their backs, their hands over
their ears

I crawled on the sticky concrete floor
between skittering legs while they worked
on my mother, tried to start her up again
with jumper cables cinched to her small machine

I, forgotten violet ghost, rose up and visited
my grandfather, the one who was
dead, he nursed me on his sagging breasts with
their white fur stink of cigars and pigs,
he held my tiny little ghost hand, caressed the
knuckles with his thumb like grandfathers do,

kissed me here above my left ear, a place
that still stings in winter like lemon juice
in the eye, and sent me back to the sour bed
of my mother, she was patched with
electrical tape & red thumbtacks

and when the nurse
lifted my mother’s hand and set it on my
powdered pink back as if she were setting
the table for an unwelcome guest,
I almost felt
my mother’s
heart beat, almost felt her breath
cross my forehead




and a bird collage
or perhaps, bird college, where birds learn to sing and bang into windows