it was my last summer/ and she was visiting/ and I was standing in the same room at the time/ she seemed calm/ but in my mind she might as well have found/ a 

perfectly rolled joint/ half-smoked/ or a neon wrapped condom/ so before she even asked/ i volunteered/ that my roommate had left it there/ it was hers/ not mine/ as if by/ 

disowning the object/ I could somehow erase/ the offense/ of pressed cotton that
swelled like a womb/ with the weight of blood and tissue and skin/ i understood then

that this bullet-shaped plug/implied many things to our young mothers/ who passed it down to their daughters/ who were supposed to believe all of it/ and pass it down

to theirs/ like a family recipe/ or a great-grandmother’s pendant/ it meant broken
curfews and dimly/ lit nights in closed rooms/ with unfamiliar windows framing

the dawn/ meant too much West/ poured into our heads/ meant we didn’t care/ about that kind of future/ who’d wonder about our past/ confused/ by how our bodies

just knew/ how to let things go/ how to make up for death/ when it didn’t give life/ or wasn’t ready/ or didn’t want to/ and that we were free  

to decide what goes into that body/ and when/ so my mother tucked/ the box back in where she found it/ and zipped up my bag like a mouth/ full of all the words she meant to say 

but didn’t/ and walked out of my room / and asked me firmly/ not to follow/