unfortunately I was a daughter first

here I am now nude and splayed

after making what I made into a life

I’m a woman stippled with hair and scars

covering the places I picked ‘til blood

pooled around my thumb places

I’m kissed by the man whose laughter

means the most to me today

before I was his lover I was a sister

in every portrait of me I was never

by myself but in this one my brother

is only on my mind not above my shoulder

smiling in every makeshift house of god

hotel conference drenched in holy

bathwater baptized laughing through

the trauma all the way back home

look at the apostolic dress I discarded

because it matched our mother’s

the scars on my stomach from when

witless and unwed I made a daughter

myself, myself alone under a warm

lamp’s light my skin uncovered

shameless and tired of trying to be

a good child, trying to dress up,

dress for the job I want, I want

to be somebody free and at peace

this could mean arms folded

on my chest laid to rest but

my brother is smiling on my mind

buried in the white casket my lover chose