“How the days went
While you were blooming within me”
-Audre Lorde, “Now that I Am Forever With Child”
With blossoms on your mind,
And legs that stretch to intertwine
With roots that rise from fertile ground,
You feel a nudge. You start to grow.
Your grandmother,
Alone in her smoky apartment
One afternoon,
Told you she lived
“A good life,” and you
Wanted to believe her.
She spoke to you about men
And love,
Marriage when you’re twenty,
Four kids by twenty-five,
And control-
The kind that haunts you.
She was bound by the times.
Your insides echo the tide.
With the moon in view you
Soar like a gull.
The wind is at your face.
It shoves your hair back.
It keeps you still.
With salt between your fingers
You reach for her words and they
Frame the sentence that you’re about to
Tell him,
Tell him,
Tell him.
You are in bloom.
Kate Devine 