Jackie Hollowell
SISTERS
My sisters,
we worship each other.
Each a beast
of the forest,
each the forest alone.
We were trees
before we were
cut out.
We had roots
before you had words for
She
Her
We
Once,
when the sun
was still unbroken yolk,
we was all there was.
I've given birth
to myself
just like my mother
before me.
Her sisters before her. I'm
the only mother I know.
I'm raising myself
from the dead
as best I can.
I have so many emptied nooses
that should be sisters.
There are pills
that should be
under the tongues
of my sisters
and there are pills
that should not.
There are people
who put them there;
there are people
who taught them
boy scout knots.
I ask you, my sisters,
where I can bury the living
to keep them safe
from people who see them living.
My sisters,
we wear crowns
of oak root and ivy.
My sisters,
we wear the ground,
our mother's voice.
All we ask for is
every sister
back home.