a girl disappears & another sprouts in her place
identical unblemished takes her name
& washes it clean of old disgrace
i wash my name of its every tyranny its purity
& wrap it tight about myself my body
is ancient is mine & hers & hers before
fallen like milkteeth only to grow eternal
into the waiting aperture before i arrived
my same body was mottled collected
under fingernails between teeth my name
taken outside my body first daughtered
& then disgraced taken from a dead woman
but in my custody will never die not ever
not again a girl is plucked & another grows
in the space she leaves behind
unfurling like mint leaves girls like weeds
like heads of hydra cut down only to multiply
to double twin girls where once was only
one a girlchild is buried alive & three push
through the soil come harvest a girl is taken
from her bed at night & in the morning four wake
from peaceful sleep their voices echoing in chorus
the world is dense with girls lush & saturated
with girls assembling dark as knotting sugar
into each wound caulked into every absence
every name returned from its tombstone every daughter
reinstalled blood a dark blue blood unlet




Photography by Amaal Saaid