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I am raising      a daughter
                           a nation
                           a knife
the animal nuzzled my neck
it drew blood & in the blood
across my chest spelled an animal language it took
a life to learn

                                                       *          
                                 
                                                        In the closet I girled into a demon
                                              [a woman with a girldemon in her belly]
                                                                          & the devil whispered—
   
                                                        *                      
 
                         As a mother I've realized, too late, it was
memory, where could I have learned sex-
ualization            unless it was carved
into the closets of the girl I've buried                                    
           
                                                       *
                                                   
                                                      I memorized every letter of the bible
                                                      & still I hurt & still the wound bleeds  

                                                       *

I am raising      a wasp's nest
                           a sharp organ
                           a sting that won't retract


I've ripped her from the humid biome of insects
caressing our bellies & fed her thickened milk

I am raising      a stake to the fat heart

                                                       *

                                    The night she fevered toward the otherworld
                               Mama I can't do this & I commanded Yes you can
                                                                        I am raising      a warrior

                                                        *

When a man
ungauzed the woundgirl the girlwound
the sticky rot place inside
I wouldn't let her see me falling apart
The daughter holds an ostrich feather to her mouth
& from her lips flower truths

[blooming toward everyone with ears] they sow

eggs in their palms & when they hatch
               only the blood
                                                           of girls unbelieved
we know our calling

                                                          *

                                   We came upon the ghostflowered grave[less]
                                            plaque for the girl our city calls Victoria
                                                 whose mother & her mother's beasts
                                                  undid the one creature in this world
                                                                  God decreed she keep safe

                               I see Victoria in every field in every open space
                      remade in God's image as if her methed-out mother
                             had never vultured her girlbody, petal by petal—
                                Victoria visits me some nights & tells me she's
                  slaying beasts in the otherplace where the girlwounds

                                                                                   arrive for healing    

                                                                         She shows me her map
                                        & promises to lead me there someday too

                                                          *
I am raising     a dead girl
                           a voice
                           a voice
                           a voice
                           a voice

                                             Hush. Victoria is singing. Can you hear
her knifeflower song?
from the book BELLY TO THE BRUTAL / Wesleyan University Press
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This poem is for every girl who was not believed or didn't know whom to ask for protection. This is for everyone who needed a mama spirit inside themselves because their mama couldn't or wouldn't protect them. This is also for Victoria, whom I never met, but whose spirit will never leave me alone. I see you dancing in every wildflowered field. May your beautiful soul, released from your girlbody too soon, fly free and unharmed. May you know you're loved. And that there are mamas who would've protected you. I'm so sorry your own mama did not. I will keep your memory alive and protect all the girls I can, as fiercely as I can, so long as I live.

Jennifer Givhan on [I AM RAISING]
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