i was my father’s tongue when

he first had me. and his heartache

and his unguarded manhood.

shaped like a suitcase handle.

no pride of origin nor belonging.

i knew this from my mother who

learnt from her mother who was

not birthed, but inherited under

the rubbles of men who did not die

but collapsed out of a purge.

a blue sleeve caftan, i imagine three

scabby women grudgingly slipping

like rotten grapes from father’s upper

pocket; and think that love is

a contest of how bad you resist

to rot. one night something happened;

all the women staged a war against

him. in what looked like a cremation

of scars. inside the shrine of

forgetfulness they scooped hostile

rituals on their heads; noun-flakes,

the debris of still-birth curses and

overripe stars melting softly into

a steel-liquid-lake.  on the glinting

surface, i remember a girl who is

a window,  yet always returns

to herself with the wrong keys.

the reflection is a proverb, that

many lesions never go away until

you remorsefully welcome them

back into the body in the dialect

of vengeance. a dream that could

only remain a dream.