Abracadabra

My mother holds the wriggling mouse

in her gloved hand

thumb poised above its vertebrae

My father in his white coat behind her

whispers the right places to break

She shakes her head—No, no

Mercy is the small name

we give an animal not ourselves

I knew she had it in her, my mother

holding me all those years ago

in the chair as my father cut my hair—

So you don’t look like a girl

Against the back of my skull

he made a fist & pulled

Like a magician & his assistant

they did the act together—Transformation

Dismemberment & Shove Her in a Hat!

The girl vanished under the black scrim

& a boy was lifted by the neck

That cowlick—

it was the only thing wild about me

In my twenties I grew my hair out

& slathered perm salt to break

the disulfide bonds

I stroked my curls, each strand

a helix hissing secrets

I thought if I looked foreign enough

no one could claim me

not even shame

which, as all things

must grow from the root