Birth Chart Palimpsest – White Wall Review

June 1997-
Two Cancer suns shrieking, mangled water
breaking and mother’s blood—umbilical
cords braiding together two spines, strong
wills, us to creep ‘til death due sever & Dad
beat us. Just stewing in the womb, which
ruptured in sterile hospital bed, cleaned
for a completed family, hollowed bellies
caught crying beside me. Planted beliefs
myself in the rakes of some higher power:
to the manifest destinies and holy ghosts,
blessings tumult down, pummeling roses
like military boots trampling upon stained 
carpet. They belong on the shelf with child
stars. Exploding like Judith Barsis and
Shirley Temples. Promising little girls

-June 2022
signs grappled, generational curses,
bonds, wealth & poverty knotted with
tungsten bands. This blooded stranger
thinks I look just like Mommy. Nothing
prepared me to see my face plagiarized.
Like a fish from bone, glistering scales
of fairness creak for the paled child I just
held to my ribcage. In two years I will save
her. From the monsters at the window
and the ever-loving Father who preys
upon her. She now dances with bared feet,
glass and cameras, dented drywall, bloody
abuse. To be kept out of the reach of
her father. And mother drinking
to forget about the mangled water signs.

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