by Danielle Hale

Someday, I will use nine months to grow another body. My blood will pump through her veins, visible through paper-thin skin, fueling the formation of slender-fingered hands like mine, flat feet like my mother’s, lips like my grandmother’s the color of rose petals, ears that already recognize my voice as I murmur my grandfather’s bedtime stories. These cells, plump with nutrients, will feed her until I open, a nesting doll releasing a smaller self.

She will no longer rely on blood from my body. But her blood falls short of quantum, white-washing her, erasing heritage that has flowed through generations since before white consumed. As easily as flame on dry wood. And though she’ll know how to fry bologna, and why the turtle’s shell is patterned, when I gaze at her eyes the color of the sky and her hair like spiraling sun,

I will weep,
I will weep,
I will weep,
I will weep
for our fade to white.

 
Danielle Hale is an Indigenous poet who grew up in rural South Dakota. Her work has appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, and Kissing Dynamite, among others. She has been nominated for the Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Danielle holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of North Dakota and currently resides in Wisconsin where she teaches writing.