We feed her sorrows:
The time the priest’s
Hands wandered too
Close to our dress collars,
Or when our fathers
Reminisced bearing witness
To the burning of witches;
When our school teacher
Whipped our bare skin bloody
For daring to kiss each
Other’s chapped lips.
Old Mother Gnome
Fractures her jaw wide
Enough to encompass
Our matchstick bodies.
There’s joy in devouring,
She says, in keeping children
Safe from the world.
And we all hold hands
Like wilting daisy chains
So as not to lose each other
On our way down the larynx
Of Old Mother Gnome,
Her hot-spring stomach acid
A balm to our weary,
Still-growing bones.
When I give birth to you,
Her voice quakes and rumbles,
It will be a new era,
And you the child rulers
Heralding its dawn.
