Roxanna Andrade

And even though I tumbled carelessly through the world inside you

biding my time to give my word, giving my word

while breathing in yours, swallowing prayers and splashing in blood

you carried me tenderly to hug an oak.

It grew inside you but also around you:

your own gentle mother’s memory.

You found shade under that oak

danced with your spade and dug me a hole,

gave me a kiss let me lie in her kever

let me breathe with your mother for nine lifeless months.

You were roots trunk and leaves, containing all

three, no sacred self, vitally loving your selves.

              And even so, you tore my cord and cut my fore-

              skin, lest love stay buried and Isaac unbound.