Blood Remembers Lyrics

It begins and ends with us

With the waves breaking on our heads

The first ocean we crossed

Was through the same blood

In our mother's head

There is a yellowed photograph

Of four girls on a weathered couch

Silent in their matching dresses

Try as she might she cannot hold them still

The girls come alive and lift off the page

Unfurl their bodies into women

Who speak and wound

Even now

This poem makes and unmakes itself

In my mouth. I'm afraid

We have already spoken and splintered

Still

There is no story of sisterhood

Without the first four made three

It begins and ends with you sister

Living yet martyred

Here and gone at once

We are no longer children

And now our mother hides

Her grief in praise songs

Fasts her body into a sliver

Wishes us back flattened

Into that old photograph

Daughters who are together and smiling

Silent and whole

We cannot outrun our blood

It is the first flood we survived

Bodies thrashing beneath it

Arms clawing at anything

We could hold

But I am done fighting

This time I offer my body to the peace

Of the steady current pulling us apart

I send my voice instead

Echolocation through time and distance

Sister

I love you

I love you enough

I love you enough to let you go