Mother of the Blues
The first time I felt it, I knew it was old as ancestry:
the feeling some women chase with words; some feel
out the flesh of their mouths or stomach with moans
and growls you would’ve thought was warfare. The child
conceived of heartache, our evidence of loving.
I was with child before I ever lay with a man—an ill-mannered
girl who made a language of feeling. She rattled my insides,
making songs of heartache and lonely.