and a womb sounds too close
to wound. Every time this happens,
I forget the sacred pocket
where you carried me, buried me
like a seed in a citrus grove. Suddenly, I am
crashing my motorcycle
into your headstone again.
While I am here, I ask
my daughter if she knows
it is your birthday. She tells me her body remembers
everything, recalls the humid smell
of orange blossoms and hum of country music
mourning from the motorboat.
She sends me your saddest song
and tells me she wants to be married
to the swamps and flatlands,
but it sounds too near to buried
so I peel myself like an orange
away from your gravesite, stop myself from sleeping
on your bones again tonight. I have to wipe the dirt again
from my mouth to be her mother. When she asks me why
I keep the aftertaste
of soil between us, I teach her how I plant her in my body
as you planted me in yours.
Whitney Egstad is a Denver-based writer, dancer, researcher, and educator whose work moves between the body and the page. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Best of the Net Anthology, The Rumpus, and other literary journals. Holding an MFA in Creative Writing and a PhD in Learning Sciences, she explores how the arts open pathways to healing and transformative learning.