he was named after the writers father but they called him Che. she
was a queen, the mother of this boy, rich, safe, her place secure.
drugged insensible, shaved, cleaned, she had been slit down the
middle to remove this prize from her innards where he was tangled,
excruciating, you will forget, they said.
slit down the middle, her abdomen and pubis shaved, her gut
painted red with antiseptic.
slit down the middle, her blood pouring out of her right from her
gut.
slit down the middle, then sewn up again,
a tumor, no, no, a son.
slit down the middle, this queen, this mother of a boy.
his birth.
the tarantula was just behind her, as they slit her down the middle,
as her blood spouted out. what had become of her blood, mopped
up. mopped up the buckets of it. her blood, not seeping out but
flooding up from her middle,
her middle had been slit open and her blood had flooded out.
slit down the middle, her pubis shaved clean, and her blood
flooding out all over,
until there wasnt any left,
not enough for her brain or her heart,
never replaced, never given back,
just flooded out and gone, never enough left in her again,
she did not want to see the thing that had been untangled from her
innards.