Ghazal for Andromeda’s Daughter
after A.E. Stallings
Figurehead crouched on the sea cliff, my knees burn.
New death to wash the lineage of ancient queens burned.
It will take 2.4 million years to learn if
still the lights of Andromeda galaxies burn.
I’ll wait as long for your return and meantime find
new ways to die by fire, let our bodies burn.
Plath in the oven, my mother in the lung – a woman’s
work is never done, only her dis-ease burns.
From my mother I learned the full moon is when we bleed and
when we give birth. By the glow of her death my memories burn.
A woman who loves herself risks everything,
yet false love like a disease burns.
We gain fifteen pounds to bleed and fifteen pounds to leave
the blood, the moon, behind. Let unbidden vanities burn.
I gave birth on my knees and you floated up for me
to hold. In the mirror of your eyes our similarities burn.
Everything we have to lose has been taken from us before.
My mother died and I rewrote her. The gap between our stories burns.
What does a warrior need to survive reproduction?
Willingness to let old loyalties burn.
Animals seek solitude to give birth and to die.
Our secrets could make the star-filled seas burn.
There are secrets I’m trying to tell. I never know which one
will let in the ghost. Once memorized, please burn.
published in New Plains Review, Fall 2022