Mark DeCarteret

The girl

the first god she met was
   a wolf beneath the bedsheet,
teeth folded like psalms
in the mirror,
    her face grows antlers at dusk.
 the deer is not running.
    the deer is learning how to stay still when shot.

her chest: a garden of blooming hourglasses
    every grain of sand a girl erased mid-sentence

her body, a locked cathedral.
her shadow, a girl swallowed by doorknobs.
her name, a field after fire.

mother never asks why the birds won’t sing at her window anymore.
they flew south with her silence tucked in their beaks.

at night,
   she dreams of a house made of her own ribs,
   in the dream,
she bites her tongue clean off
   finally, a god she can bury.

Nwodo Divine is a writer and editor based in Nigeria. His poems have appeared on poetry column, Bacopa Literary Review, Heavy Feather Review, and elsewhere.