After our damp skins slid apart
I nearly starved, pulling
on my mother’s drained tit.
She used all her strength
to shove me out of her body,
the last link stretched, slashed,
tied in a knot I wear on the beach,
flaunting the twisted emblem
of first rejection, the eye of flesh
that saw love couldn’t last.
- Lauren Shakely (1948-)
