He must be packing his bags

The night before my mother was induced

I was so active the midwife said she

must be packing her bags.

Would she have used the feminine?

I was nothing yet

no secret windows to peek

through in those days. No peering

down the gleaming bones to see

what secrets were tucked away.

It was all conjecture and old wives tales.

Mother on the bed

midwife with her instruments

city murmuring upwards

to the stars

and me

in the too small room

they’d allocated me

encountering the limits of myself

looking for a way out

of my liquid language

into the place

where words are

hard, cool objects –

sharp as knives,

blunt as stone,

cracked like eggs,

spilt like milk on marble floors.