BACK ALLEY 15

throw it back into the water

she cut herself open to bring me into this world:
a river of blood; a fish swallowing its own tail.
i wonder if she had known then
how her body brimmed over like a wartorn riverbed -- all
shot through with fishhooks, glinting and hungry.
first barb from the belly of a battle. in the war grandpa swam south
through a channel, grew steel scales in the water, learned to slaughter 
whatever breathed in his direction. at ten,
mama made the wrong joke and got a hook through the head.
learned a child should feel choked up as an abandoned city river.
i wonder if when she crumpled to the floor
she cried like i did, hands clamped over ears
trying to stop it all from rushing in.
i wonder if she remembers how her mama dried her tears
& held her 'til she stilled:
not like a daughter, but like a fish thrashing in the net. slashing
her up with the barb under her tongue, spitting & cursing & blaming her for the blood.
now mama doesn't know what is love
& what's a hook through the tongue. she cuts me open
where her scales have scarred shut. mama
sometimes i don't know the difference
between your body and mine. tell me 
are we both going to die gutted
and strung up on this bloodline