nacre

pearl - is what my birthstone is, though I was born octo- 

burr, that dark chamber, hidden cove, where'st my mother

first left me - hidden in her backpocket, clutching poppy 

leaves; the prickly ends, crushing between her fingers - blood

dripping onto the garden’s earthen trail, darkest side opposite her

palm, supple skin - caramelized sugar under sun - tone, melting 

beneath my daddy’s gaze, his glistening cross brighter than

my white’st teeth, the bedazzled side perfectly positioned 

at eye-height, her skirts plain and modest, like he likes it 

her ‘sexy side’ dying with her aspirations, the baby iced inside

stalled at the gates of creation, halted with her heart's flutter 

my own too quiet for her to hear, that tenth month they fell- 

then strayed deeper down into the slippery pit where-lies their 

love, unthawing on the hottest day of june, marinated in the

bottommost layer of my mother’s waters, feasting on pollution 

a maggot for a daughter between her battered hips, decomposing

rotten flesh to atom, separating black carcass from nutrient

cultivating life from death fragments - bliss from the suffer