Bounty

I hear there’s a bounty on my womb.
A high price in the currency
of power and control.
In the currency
of violence
and cowardice.

You want to make a home in this body.
Penetrate it with your power and lust
and demand I carry the seed you’ve planted
pretending to protect the sacred
when we both know
your concern is for birth
and not for life.

I’ve seen the way you watch
as young mouths go unfed
as young arms are torn from their mother’s embrace
as young bodies are raped and ravaged and locked away
in the land of the free
and home of the brave.

You read me ghost stories
from the good book
about purity
and innocence
and all the ways my body is wrong
and all the ways my body does not belong to me.
But I prefer different fairy tales.
The ones that were woven from an
ancient mother’s womb
whispered to her from deep in the earth.
The ones that teach me
that I am fire and water
that I am land and thunder
that I am holy and sacred
that I am the great creator and destroyer
that I belong to me
and only me
and I alone
will decide.

I hear there’s a bounty on my womb
but you seem to forget
that I am the huntress
and I can smell the fear
dripping from your cowardly words
and I dare you to try and hold my fire
in your bare, trembling hands.

-- Gina Puorro

www.ginapuorro.com