cut through their rite of passage,
mouths clasped into a whole fist.
What fog obliterates the dream
of land under wet moonlight?
Our women pray with relentless
voices for rain to join tributaries.
They hold an ignition of obituaries
on their laps. The unbridled hymnal
becomes a prayer for sustenance.
A country folded into a roll of paper
in the color of its flag. A steady echo
beyond the windswept line of control
blurred into the harbor of escape.
Say another name for worship
is when all the glass bangles shatter
over a stone. What sound soothes
this excavation of inheritance through
the fallow fields? When our women
escape through a sea, they knit
mythology by what they leave behind:
a flag, independence, and country.
When our women pass an ocean,
they sing in praise for larkspurs.
They one-acquaint with the smell
of rain as the cumulonimbus burst
brings water to the rivers.
Say mercy is another name
for water. Say water is another
name for escape, or unclenched fist.
After violence, an embrace of singing.