My Body, Sided / christi cartwright

Bones poke and stretch
the canvas of skin
until they shape a face.

Potcakes whelp babies in the sand or on roads
while secrets held in girls’ mouths
sink down in stomachs to the hum of the zip.

Undo with an awl loose stitches
sewn at the launch of freedom. Walk
from church to the bar cross the road,

both places dark, shaded from the heat
of horizons. No need for eyes to adjust.
In the past, when we were proud,

we talked to the beach.
Now, against bald patches
of pock-ridden plains,

a cruise ship docks in pierced borders.
With contorted speech, we bid them come.
This is the home I recognize. My body sides with it.

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