Of All the Metaphors for Being a Daughter
I’m drawn to the strangler fig’s
cosmic swirl of execution, aerial
trapeze artist mining down through
the body. And who am I to pretend
I have any stake in that death:
dissolving nutrients, nonconsensual
sacrifice, melted trunk a banquet
while the whole canopy looks on,
quiet in growth. The silent dissolution,
and after, nothing but soil made richer
for the disappearance. Reader,
which one daughter, which one
mother? Repeat after the YouTube
subtitles: hemi-parasitic, which is to say
split / reliance, which is to say keystone
species, more abundance than murder,
at the end of the day. All I know
is that forest must be rammed
with oxygen and rot. And look,
a few burgeoning fruit that will soon
house another death, only this one
volunteered: a mother digs herself
into that sweet, wet heart, all thrash
and surrender, wings stripped
from the muscular body. And so
two lives—no, a whole chattering
universe, stuffed with sugar.
These days, everyone’s dying
for a little more life. Yes, my kingdom—
though I could see her coming for miles,
long before I knew my body
had an endpoint, long before
I knew that finish line was a thin
tuft of seed, glossy, slick with bird shit,
anchoring herself into me,
where soon she’d wrap her legs,
fingers, every inch around
this one long, lichened self.
On Having a Daughter
Instead of any child, I’ll carry thistle
bulbs, purple and rubbing against—
or the seed of a banyan, quiet, sturdy,