if he lets her close her eyes the most she can see is a snow of feathers and the scent of him is the part of the blizzard that continues inside her but will not drain from her when she stands
she no longer wonders if it is her blood or his stain a new creek down her leg either way this is her body asking her to remember escape
she wishes her name were a fluid running from her never to return she hopes it has stolen his sons out of her
she is 9
she has learned not to tremble because this might make her a chime in his wind she has nothing left to refuse him but her music
back in her village her mother slaps her own cheeks to raise life from the dead of her face to practice her daughter back warm to her skin to cause drum in her bones louder than prayer
and 7000 miles away in a theater full of full bellies movie endanger and movie rescue is how we understand torn girls and if not endanger and rescue then movie virtue avenged
torn girls are not for stopping because they are the spice of our full belly stories
and in the gathering of men so like theater where girls are bought for being torn there is laughter which is the evidence of the deafness of angels in this land
and nearby she is still 9 when she sees a girl whose veil had exhausted its holy leaving only the strength to dangle her away from herself
she was 12
at 9 she wonders if she could tie such a knot if her hands were so tiny they failed to be claws
another man appears and he is the fifth and it is only noon her hair is a rope around his knuckles her veil a false shadow in the dust and the sound she hears should be her rattlesnake heart the only flesh of her that believes it is still alive but the sound is of geese flying in formation over a flurry of loose feathers she has squinted to
the squawk bids her to close her eyes without permission to snow
she is still 9 when she urges the birds to collapse into comet and fall flame and mislaid winter into everything
“Ezidi” by Donny Jackson for the thousands of Ezidi women and children abducted, tortured and raped by ISIS.
