It’s a girl, she’s told
and I wonder if she smiles
Delicate wails on blooming walls Nails chipped over daisy crowns her girl will fight for
Only to watch wither
Her daughter’s first glance in the mirror
Her second
Her third
Her three hundredth
She read it’s the three hundredth That makes the habit
So the very first trap To snatch up her daughter
Is the very form that wraps her
A scrapbook starts to shape
Of other kinds of cages Pages paper-white to start with
Before they start to shine
Selfies safe to capture
Before they become lifelines
Streets safe to walk on
Before they run with crimes Designed for daughters
Restaurants safe to dine in Before the spaces under tables
Rise above the law
And hands can settle on her knee
And phones can see what Was once reserved for love and sheets
In a world that seemed to exist
Before her girl drowned
In the waters she's authored
It’s a boy, she’s told
Does she let out a sigh?
Relieved because somewhere in her mind
Hangs a headline
That runs through every Door he’ll want to open
A rope to hold at every moment
When he chooses which objects
To stand on so he can feel taller
Not yet born, already adolescent
She thinks of the day where He’ll come to choose a scent
Will he wear a fragrance meant To scare?
Or wear it harmless?
Like a wristwatch
To slide up an arm Too thin for its man-sized links
Will the space between Wrist and watch
Become the void he’ll learn Is a blotch on his manhood?
And what will he do then to prove That he can carry the weight
Of the title already printed on his sheet?
He hasn’t yet formed
And he’s tossed in concrete Cracking on his tongue
As he tries to speak To tell of the hell swirling inside him, so instead
He hurls his hell around him
So high from the safety of the ground He’ll look to see the love he’s left below
And feel aggression’s vertigo
Still in the womb
He’s already consumed In a fire she seems to have spread
But the flames weren’t in her head Until she found out
This new life was male And she isn’t twisting this tale
In her own handwriting She thinks of all the things she's read
In a bold block typeface
That race his life to a raging blur
But the nurse asks her If she wants to know
and she says
No
So where does her mind go?
No Jim, no Jane
No name
No binding frame
No game of opposites or Prophecies
No colour
And every colour
No hurt to be spun by Authors that runs through her head
No marriage, just love
No dress, just comfort
No form but forming
No choice but choosing, breathing
No held breath or violent sighs No salt trapped behind the eyes for fear
of crying
She doesn’t know
And her child won’t grow against the wind of her premature will
She can’t rush to spill the ink
To print truth before its written
Hurry a baby out of her womb and into a prison
Where language can rage
But where she hears the winds of change
She’s not afraid of a blank page
Because it’s not boy or girl Predator or prey
A choice of brain or body
Better or worse
It's just hers
Words second
And first,
A child
A child, she thinks
And in all this bad news
She’s got a reason
to smile.