“I am the Complete Secret”
(Scandinavia 820 – 1863 A.D.)
The glacier is a beast who resides in a question mark.
My DNA
deceives my skin.
My Norway
is buried under
Southern shadows.
There are no stories
of Olaf, Halcon.
The Northern lights blind the history
written by the slave trader
who carried the bills of lading.
In Oslo, I saw
the Oseburg
that failed to cross the sea to meet me.
In 1001 when
they discovered home,
did they imagine
me in chains?
The orca tear through the sea
while I tread water.
I had parents but lived as an orphan.
Let the results
reveal my blood
and the stain I hide.
“At 13, I found a bra”
I had not prayed for the monsoons
reveling between my breasts.
The bullfrog that beats beneath
my pectoral muscle
cannot fit into a second-hand mold.
Along my Sierras grows an
orchard of knowledge of good
and evil. I take my beatings. I
bind myself in woman’s hood.
I hook the clasps
along my curved spine.
Only the band knows
the stress of my heart.
I am told every woman
pays her debt with pain.
When the daffodil opens,
the last breath of childhood releases.
I already knew
long before he
called me a whore
where I stood
in his bloodshot mind
before his crooked eyes.
I am the harlot—
Christ’s final temptation,
binding the mind to cause.