Think it through. What you will
take, what you will leave behind.
No need to polemicize. The journey
was long, longer than you thought.
Now it’s over. There’s no going back.
No promises to keep. No needs to fulfill.
Only memory to will a clean slate
and regrow a girl from scratch. Start
at the point when she remembers a vessel
filled with fear to overflowing.
Don’t ban. Don’t block. Don’t purge.
She remembers what she saw, that
first fist coming down like a primal myth
lugging its balls of wood, slingshots with
eyes, axes to slice off the limbs
of misbehaving girls. Giants stomping
in the corners of cribs. No girlchild
circumvents synaptic urges of fear
permanently rendered in dream sequences
running her down. The fear of him
generalized to speak the word Father.
What she knows she will never forget.
Without flinching, she dispatches
the damaged fibers as verse to call
and response, architecture
to regrow herself from scratch.
