ends
by Christine Antoine
i’m told
they still let
us holey women
through the gates
of Guinea, rejoice!
but my granny
won’t shake hands
with a mortician and
still bathes me
sometimes,
and sometimes,
my subconscious will
protest: wonder how
quickly i’d drown.
how quiet.
here i keep quiet
also. swallow,
as she wade fingers through dead
ends / / drain a murky tub
salvage our bones. say,
we ain’t die to keep on
dying and baby you ain’t
dead yet.
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