Ghazal for Lost Girls
In the last gasp of twilight, I can remember a time before I was a girl,
or something like a girl, because a girl can be a swan and a swan a girl
and the only real difference is the feathers you cough up in your sleep,
the gray that braids into hair and anoints you girl-
child, firstborn, beloved above all beloveds, until you traipse off
the path, into a forest more choked than dark, no place for a girl
who has heard the whispers; of course, she’s heard them all, and she knows
fear as a thin, red thread needled through a maze of girl
after girl in a cradle of bark and wet grass and earthflesh good enough
to take in her jaw, and become something a little more teeth than girl,
a little more bone than ribbon, a little more every swallow dies
midair than anything her mother would ever call a girl,
and yes, this is the difference between restless and hopeless, a little crack
in the wall to peer through, and there: something never-really girl.
