The Sum: Our Tangled Quarks

She sat straight up scolding—

I don’t need a man to have a baby

and it was so violent—just then

So much hate I felt seared to hear her justice

Divorce, single mother, two sisters

She hadn’t needed a man for anything {y}et

Even //sex{x}// the carnal compromise: science

rendered a sham. I can be who I am,

without a man

and fill the school halls with pupils

all of them genderless and skirted.

When did we get so angry—when did our wombs

sound the siren cry for justice. For mother-ness

In the infinite fatherless; our almighty insolence.

Together, a single entity, inseparably strong—

for without: the remainder of mother sans father—Was god.

I am no idol // no creator of life undaunted.

I {reclined to disagree} needed someone, everyday

to catalog my minutia, to record my human incidents.

someone every/day to suggest pizza for dinner—

movies-on-demand—someone, who would

pry when I stumbled in headlong-midnight

fear the worst when I pocket-vetoed voicemails.

I needed someone, who so happened to be a | man.

But it was quantum randomness that suggested us

together; an epiphany of skin that bound our nuclei.

And for that I was never angry

—ECW