We hollows. Jutting out among the white roses.
Twisting our leather, our skins that hang,
thin tombstones we wear as bangles, we toss them,
Anna Perennas gone abandon, hot with lustful
hates, we shear the beds, we shear the heads
of limping chapels, swaying bird wings flayed
from feathers that dapple the night with shadows,
no soft moon, only the sailing galleys and dread
of ink scratching our given names on slabs of shame,
we are hollows, we are howling, we who never
asked for anything, forced birth, by a victim, a carving,
not by a mother. If only, we had our fathers, we golems
of the rapes, we might not swallow the thorns
of the white roses, those vain flowers
telling us it’s medicine.