Daughter Tongue

Proverb

You must cut your coat by your waist,

you preach, when you catch me

reaching for a dress outside my budget,

as if it were a cookie, which we all
was my first word. Not Mama.

Even when we don’t discuss

gastric bypass

we do.
You ask if I am afraid

of the knife and I chuckle,

for I have been long-groomed

for the blade. Anyway,
it is not for me to say

how brave only

that I would peel back

the fresh scabs
like a potato skin,

drag the slotted blade

across the surface

from syllable to line
one at a time

West to East

then West again,

if it would urge you
to grease the pan.

What if the body
is just the throw-away?

The spotted frailty

that barely drapes:

the words
we are unable to say.

The left over love,

no longer appropriate

to plate.

Omotara James