Shara McCallum

You will leave your home: nothing will hold you. You will wear dresses of gold; skins of silver, copper, and bronze. The sky above you will shift in meaning each time you think you understand. You will spend a lifetime chipping away layers of flesh. The shadow of your scales will always remain. You will be marked by sulphur and salt. You will bathe endlessly in clear streams and fail to rid yourself of that scent. Your feet will never be your own. Stone will be your path. Storms will follow in your wake, destroying all those who take you in. You will desert your children kill your lovers and devour their flesh. You will love no one but the wind and ache of your bones. Neither will love you in return. With age, your hair will grow matted and dull, your skin will gape and hang in long folds, your eyes will cease to shine. But nothing will be enough. The sea will never take you back.

for my sisters Because we did not have threads of turquoise, silver, and gold, we could not sew a sun nor sky. And our hands became balls of fire. And our arms spread open like wings. Because we had no chalk or pastels, no toad, forest, or morning-grass slats of paper, we had no colour for creatures. So we squatted and sprang, squatted and sprang. Four young girls, plaits heavy on our backs, our feet were beating drums, drawing rhythms from the floor; our mouths became woodwinds; our tongues touched teeth and were reeds.