Tear | The Poetry Foundation

It was the time before

I was born.

I was thin.

I was hungry. I was

only a restlessness inside a woman’s body.

Above us, lightning split open the sky.

Below us, wagon wheels cut land in two.

Around us were the soldiers,

young and afraid,

who did not trust us

with scissors or knives

but with needles.

Tear dresses they were called

because settler cotton was torn

in straight lines

like the roads we had to follow

to Oklahoma.

But when the cloth was torn,

it was like tears,

impossible to hold back,

and so they were called

by this other name,

for our weeping.

I remember the women.

Tonight they walk

out from the shadows

with black dogs,

children, the dark heavy horses,

and worn-out men.

They walk inside me. This blood

is a map of the road between us.

I am why they survived.

The world behind them did not close.

The world before them is still open.

All around me are my ancestors,

my unborn children.

I am the tear between them

and both sides live.

Notes:

Tear dresses are traditional Chickasaw women’s clothing.

Source: The Book of Medicines (Coffee House Press, 1993)