POLITICAL Poem: blood lines, by Kate MacAlister

my initiation deepens
I sit and listen to your yesterwounds

nothing has changed
everything is changing

deep change goes by many names.
the songs are different?

the words are the same
the times polluted.

the ground still shakes
and there are shards falling

sister, we are still here
after the witch hunt
sister. we are still becoming

buried burgeoning I would
like everyone to start screaming.

my hands tremble when I speak

press the megaphone so close
to your lips, you almost swallow it

to hear my voice over the wind?

over “YOU BITCHES”,
over women are not a struggling class
over the call and response

OUR BODIES ?
OUR CHOICE!
WHOSE STREETS
OUR BLOODY STREETS.

I press it hard to my mouth
to replace that century old lump
they hoarded in my throat
and o p e n

pour liberation
and after the rain sleep
in your body at war

all the women in us so tired
lying perfectly still gathering

gathering heartwood for new fires
to dance to burn

to build in the ashes