of sisters

She spoke in a song in a tongue
not of our mother
through a determined narrative
of spite and menstrual blood,
                gorged at fates own eye
until he was blinded from seeing her.

Hope spoke slowly for we did not understand
how to grip tightly to her coat tail
through wind and rain
                a bitterness of a long December,
when we woke in April nothing looked
as it had done when birth was new,
fresh scents of afterbirth
sickly sweet        tender tendrils.

                I cut the umbilical cord
before it wrapped around my neck
she carved the date under her skin
                so we could not forget,
I folded away skirts and blankets
no need for them again
                under the weight of disgrace.

She held the knife close as we swore
promises skyward           in defiance,
I have scrawled down her laments
                in fingerprints and coded lists
of names and atomic numbers,
there is no balance to us
                drifting from place to place
invisible as the day we merged,
she is my voice
                we are sisters.