I have become a woman
who weeps from eyes
cut like cowrie shells,
the lids pulled apart,
the tomb between them
empty. I have not
lashes but small teeth,
white and parted and ready
to trap darkness, the irony
being that I am bound
and bowed by my own
ghosts, spirits to whom
I hold my arms high
in perpetual offering:
a penance for my sins.
I offer cotton and women’s
things. I undulate
in a cage of lace.