Animals: “Ghost Bird and the Darning Needle Pt. 1,” by Bella Gordo

Ghost Bird and the Darning Needle Part 1

There is no solution for the wilderness
recasting the material in my blood. 
“To no more smiles!” Diana Khoi 
Nguyen once wrote for me like a spell,
Bewitchment: two dragonflies unsubtle
in their lovemaking. The name of 
This scythe is Ovipositor. I, too, have a
death-shaped appendage from which 
Life escapes in hundreds. I am heavy with
life-giving even though you have Determined that
my skin-color is only sadness. Maybe the rape of
our grandmothers is not the key to our lives in the
diaspora. Maybe this is an unlocked door. Maybe
you all are trying too hard. 
On the banks of East Fork Lake, I watched her
speak to Him at barely a whisper and he heard
every word though several yards away With his
line in the water and her meat on the grill and her
friend sharing his blunt with me and that's what
makes leashes possible. On the banks of East Fork
Lake, though my Dog is unsettled that the trees
sing to us both and he wants to run away, this leash
makes us possible. Wilderness tells me I do not
need to be possible. It tells me to hold on to him
while I lay my eggs in the river and trust him to lift
me up when I am Done, my hundreds spilling into
the world in the singular moment of honesty in my
Short dragonfly life. I do not have to smile, says
the wilderness. I do not have to Apologize that I
am all wrong for happiness.

About Bella Gordo

 Bella Gordo (she/they) is a Creative Writing student at the University of Cincinnati. They are always thinking about growing wings. 

Instagram: @isabella.gordo