So This Is Love (Cento)

To find your own hand
Handing them money
To give the bleating goat
Fat and red, a placenta
Pulled open as if she had bitten
Cold fingers combing
The air in the north
Eyes rimmed pink

Don’t worry just call it
One long winter of plague

Perhaps they were right
There is nothing between us

But

The head hung in a tree
Old barnacled umbilicus
Balled small enough to fit
Inside
Your mother’s shadow

So this is love

(Sources: Ocean Vuong, Diane Seuss, Alex Dimitrov, Jericho Brown, Dorianne Laux, Terrance Hayes, Sylvia Plath, Brigit Pegeen Kelly)

What I’m Reading:

“My nickname on his lips is all wrong. It’s like by saying it, he’s trying to make me feel like he’s a friend, instead of a mess masquerading as my father.”

— Sabaa Tahir / All My Rage