My family’s history is a slip
tucked under a dress
to make self into something else,
a thing less driven, less raged
less gutted, milked, less ink on the page,
some thing to transform
being into body,
body into subject,
subject to sew,
a certain seed,
to make go, make go
like this, to and fro
all of our lives, metred out,
a-line, in a row.
My family’s history is also
a slip
of the tongue
slitting language like silk,
seams come undone.
