Bloom Point

The church group stands on
the corner of Airport and University,
holding signs about dead babies
and eternal damnation.
There’s a boy waving a picture
of an umbilical cord wound
like a noose. He must be fourteen.
He looks at me through my car window
and bellows something about motherhood.
I can tell he’s wearing his father’s tie.
I have the urge to hold him,
to pat the creases out of his blazer.
I can tell he has his mother’s face,
transcribed from cherub flesh, buttered
in a wash of pimples. In his nightmares,
there are dry-rotted placentas and evil crones
stinking of his mother’s lotion.
He churns this purple myth
while she rises at dawn
to fry eggs for breakfast. His favorite.
In the pooch of her belly,
there lies that forbidden boneyard
which has sparked so much fear.
Ribbons begat vipers begat
bloodshed begat rust.
The creator sighs, bored. Grease pops
at her ruddy fingers. She wraps her bathrobe
around her waist and waits
for the yolk to end its simmer.

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Isibeal Owens is originally from Mobile, Alabama, and is currently living in New Jersey, pursuing her Bachelor's in English at Rutgers University. Her work has appeared in Oyedrum, Temenos, and Chestnut Review.