Ghazal for Becoming Your Own Country
After Rachel Eliza Griffiths’s “Self
Stones Country” photographs
Know what the almost-gone dandelion knows. Piece by piece
The body prayers home. Its whole head a veil, a wind-blown
bride.
When all the mothers gone, frame the portraits. Wood spoon
over
Boiling pot, test the milk on your own wrist. You soil,
sand, and mud grown bride.
If you miss your stop. Or lose love. If even the medicine
hurts too.
Even when your side-eye, your face stank, still, your heart
moans bride.
Fuck the fog back off the mirror. Trust the road in your
name. Ride
Your moon hide through the pitch black. Gotsta be your own
bride.
Burn the honey. Write the letters. What address could hold
you?
Nectar arms, nectar hands. Old tire sound against the
gravel. Baritone bride.
Goodest grief is an orchard you know. But you have not been
killed
Once. Angel, put that on everything. Self. Country. Stone.
Bride.