It almost always started with women. It was about

covering, something like forming

a home out of dirt, an ash-body. Maybe it was a mask

or medicine, or just desire tucked into ritual. We’d never

even felt permanence against our tongues,

and an infant could tell you that’s the only real way

to know, so we took our only always

and made a mouth of it, tried to taste

god. There was needle pricking, and soot, since it all begins

there, and there was bleeding, of course, like everyone was trying

to make a woman out of themselves, but really womanhood is nothing

like needles, it eats needles, how do I explain pain bigger

than the body bearing it? It wasn’t

needles at first, it was anything that could make

an opening, and the smaller the opening the finer

the details, and the smaller the opening the more

one body could open, and maybe that was the point, to try

to open, or to try and hold more than hands can. It was about nourishing

the deep inside-hunger, mixing ashes into breast milk to feed

each made mouth. It wasn’t always a solution,

sometimes it was just charcoal smeared into the wound. You have to

fill yourself up with something if you don’t want

the bad to come back, and if the hurt gets bigger

than you, you start making a door for it.