The Mark of Eve
Illustration by Philip Luke Manghihilot
My ink
The kind that spills
Onto every surface
Sometimes paper, sometimes skin
Sometimes into the hands of
Someone who with it paints
The seal of a hero
Believing to have excised
And not consigned to a
Distant and irrevocable ubiquity
Hashtags, flags, books,
Campaigns, movement
Now the whole world drinks the ink
With mouths wide
In injury to
The udder – the mouth
That could not refuse
The kind he will resent me
For on my wedding night
When I bare my skin
For the first time since
By then all my sins are forgiven
Except the one I did not commit
And yet he like I
Can no longer bear
To place flesh on flesh
As though he shared the memory of
The night every night became
The kind that creeps
Around my neck and curdles
When I try to summon memory to speech
— Like his hand did that night as
He held me down and
Made my skin the tomb for
His indelible design
Indelicately placed and
Every “No” I gargled when
He slit a cherub’s throat and
Filled my mouth with ink
It was my fault
I am so strong
Thank you
No thank you for
My ink
