Our Body
Sometimes, the smell of my body getting older
is the smell of my mother’s body just existing.
The t-shirt I sleep in and sweat in and don’t wash nearly enough
sometimes smells sweet and sour--like a nostalgia that isn’t entirely mine.
I am convinced
there is something generational
about the way
I’m settling into my body.
Once upon a time,
I was just an egg
in the ovary
of the fetus
tethered to my grandmother’s life force.
Now, when I bleed,
my bathroom smells of the rusting iron
that used to flow from my mother.
