Your god spins me up from dry hot ground,
I invent the word for dust. I am what you will
leave and return to. For so long I stay away
waiting for you to call to me. When you made her––
the way you imagined you could control
your own creation––filling her belly full
of babies. I use sharp pencil and grind swollen
loss into my thigh. I deliver a world of ghosts.
Invent the word ghost. Invent a word for demon.
All the ways we name and have been named
Mother. I usher your babies into the world
by hand. I am what invents you—to leave
and return and leave again and over again,
your God spins me up from dry hot ground.
Kate Sweeney is a poet. She holds an MFA from Bennington College and serves as Managing Editor for Pleiades Magazine. She is the recipient of the 2024 Adrienne Rich Award from Beloit Poetry Journal. Her poems and interviews have appeared or are forthcoming from Poet Lore, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry Northwest & elsewhere. She is author of the chapbook, The Oranges Will Still Grow Without Us (Ethel 2021).