Chattahoochee

I changed the river, changed

my gender, curved
my mama’s very specific
warning around the bend

my ear heard but didn’t
hear her careful you don’t end

up in—the gin, another
mother’s public

grief, the general’s
in the open

casket, a lynch pin
I mistook. Unrolled,

the silk bolt is
a silty asylum in Florida.
I am sitting bolt upright in

my bed, coming to in time,
to see my mama slowly

backing out. The river
is a courtroom. I, a woman

in my 50s drenched
in sweat, the desecrated child

horror my body shapes
into a tumor

the size of a grapefruit
to keep a child

from growing in the dead
water careful

womb. The Tallahatchie
is not—the Chattahoochee.
A woman is on trial.

(Somewhere in the gallery,
Zora takes notes for
an article. Somewhere

in another time and place
Zora throws back

her head and laughs and
laughs and loves

the sight of herself. Somewhere,
in the library I reach for

the word of God in me, coming to
a river.) She’s taken the law into

her own hands, the narrative’s
taken a turn. She steps across
into what the state calls madness.