Some boyfriend passed out in the bucket seat, mouth slack, my father’s breath drifting out of him. I smell my parents’ bedroom in the
“…my estrogen kitchen my black bag of desire” —Lucille Clifton, “Poem to My Uterus” I wanted to see you when they pulled you out,
And what if they, too, were taken away the low notes, the flat notes, the natural sounds? Consonants, vocals, the round O’s I’d miss,