Both of my halves
Came on ships.
One half with chains on their calves,
One with old names on their lips.
The women on those ships, my kin,
Lived out unequal lives but
Both harvested the land in different skin.
That distinction is clear-cut.
My existence is ambivalent,
And their past trauma I hold within.
Others are vigilant
In pointing out the ambiguity of my kin.
Half of their stories lost to the sea,
But the rest wound up within me.
