Self-Defense or What I Wish Mama Had Taught Me

              for My Daughter
 

Your body can unzip 

like a boned bodice. 
 

Your body is a knife— 

both slicing point 
 

& handle.  Your body is the diamond 
 

blade arm 

but the bleeding is not yours.  
 

On the ground at your feet 

your body is becoming rocks.  
 

Heat-baked by centuries into basalt,

canyons of you, black-mouthed & sharp-edged. 
 

Lift the largest rock 

of yourself and throw 
 

with all the rocks in your gut.

Ghost the mother of your gut—she birthed you 

for rocks. 

In the ghost story, a woman goes to hell 

for a man who’d unravel her. 

Use the hell

of your body, 

unravel for no one but yourself.