eden had four rivers
after the birth and the afterbirth, the midwife lifts the placenta to show how from womb we are all elemental, beloved, succored from a veiny tree. the assigned boy child was easy. querido querida querides , we took the organ, of our lineage, a treasured gift, of our waters and roots, iced and carried in a bloody plastic bag, a budding, and contributed its last work to fig. after the assigned girlchild, wherever you go from around to within, we had to steal what they wanted to study. mother as creature made possible pathology. we brought a cooler and guarded it. peaches rise now in a garden that feeds other mouths. there is a metaphor there. let us just say medicalized racism saw every part of me and she as tainted. this the initiation into black gendered identity. eden was surrounded by rivers and within it, walking ancestor, los ancestros que todavía respiran están respirando sus canciones trees rose and the roots talked to one another. all creatures listened and knew one language. they moved like water, we see you, adapting to one another. and in the water, we be you, that fed the water and trees and all living things, you be we, there was wisdom and memory passed on. areyto to atabey remembered in stone on a metal tray, strength current wherever there is water and earth, a deliverer holds up a blood tree, roots the bridge between death and life and dream, fleshy eden, listen to the voices still whispering there before the clot. springtime in mewl and eyelash flutter. our and your own yes.