so I removed the unthawed
placenta from my freezer
two years too late
and instead of burying it
with my moon blood beneath the dogwood
as the four white women advised
I flung it far into the mouth
of a rabid hound
searching for scraps of bone,
anything—my body. Violent
said the women from their hedges.
Soil is a more spiritual choice. Shit
crusting my daughter’s flesh, and the howling
upturning everything we’ve buried—the dead
stars alight with watching: you are
my only one
First published in Pleiades Magazine (2021). Included in Impossible Belonging (2023)
