When I brought her to my chest
she was all alabaster. Sweet cream skin
beneath white velvet vernix. Womb-wet,
her tiny stallion un-stalled, hushed despite
my calling to her. My mind thick with the rich
smoke of copal. Small beast with beating heart
and beady eyes, bright as the night that ushered
her in. Don’t know why I thought she’d be
russet brown, thought her hued the baritone
of brewed assam. I guess I’d dreamed her so,
though the math of him and me, small probability
to yield a midnight child. She wasn’t high yellow
like my father, but true as yuca, more frankincense
than copper. I, unwitting mother of Pearl, mere
moments after her birth, prepare to be mistaken
for the nanny of a child I bred and issued
all in the same ivory sheets.

To read more from Obsidian, please link to our Subscribe page