Independence

If I cut off
my hands for you,
if I cut myself
to pieces for you,
if I pulled myself apart
bit by bit,
if I lost
all of myself,
then I would be perfect,
I imagine,
the perfect bride
for a man like you.
What a mighty good man
to have loved me
for the beauty I was,
but not the beauty
I have become.

This body
having birthed your children,
this body
having borne their milk-suckle mouths,
their fat-fisted grabhands
around my fingers,
around my braids.

If I pull myself
in a hundred thousand
different directions
and become
motherloversisterdaughter
so you can have
everything you need of me,
perhaps I will one day
get to become
everything I need
of myself.