Not in your echoing womb,
to scream at you across your fields to wake up,
not part of your denial that Earth is burning,
dehydrated, suffocating on itself—
I stood in a blue state
while you bled the red of its people—(Our people: recall how they grew up
across Holt Street, Maple Street from us, yes?)—
delusional that you were the world’s own,
unothered.

I was not your spit-take,
the drop bucket,
flag-raising, barn-burning,
white-hooded bonfires.

I was in my high school art class,
kicking my feet on a stool when JFK was shot, Mom says.
I even remember what I was painting when they made the announcement.

It’s like that.
I was hiding my face in my fingers,
my faith in my chest,
my heart torn from the fabric of my sleeve,
counting to convince math to work,
to STEM for little girl petals becoming,
but numbers broke each column
shrinking.

I was in my room, alone, when we were told we didn’t matter,
that our pussies could be grabbed,
that we were only droughting from Chinese hoax.

We’ll remember where we were.

I was holed inside myself disconnecting my umbilical from what you became,
the land I used to color with my mother’s paints,
before wrong hues muddied,
absence of color, symbol of stop and no and postage due,
white always showing underneath the red.