god is the blood and bone
of a mother’s open hips—
unhinged, permitting
the truest expression of life:
cries. I hear god
in the idea of those pained bellows.
I was there, I passed through
god, but
I too was crying.
And I mean men
don’t understand
the blood and the bone,
the warmth they fell from—
once so enveloped in softness
and skin, and then
the womb’s warmth
drains from them.
So, men build fires and forget, create
god again in their image, and obsess
over the open hips of women
without remembering why.
Sunshine (she/they) is a queer Louisville-area poet who enjoyed a career as a Speech-Language Pathologist before pursuing poetry. Whether as a clinician or poet, Sunshine believes in the restorative and contagious powers of self-expression. They are dedicated to sharing that power with others through their writing and monthly writing workshop– Golden Hours. Sunshine’s first published work is found in the Louisville poets anthology, Once a City Said, by Sarabande Books and edited by Joy Priest.
