the first inheritance a puncture wound:
where you detach from your mother
an undug grave call it provenance
In one language named life source هوى
eve. the period preceding some say wife/mother of [ ]
but origin can’t be tethered to consequence
an oculus doomed to gape before a mirror
my abdomen rounded a line appeared
from navel to sex linea nigra
text appeared ا the first letter
abjad inferred, ا
mammalian I, matriline
I did not want this look how
it appeared I multiplied
from figment I bore
witness: your body
From THEOPHANIES (Alice James Books, 2024). Copyright © 2023 by Sarah Ghazal Ali. Used with the permission of the publisher. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 27, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets