by Abby Wheeler

I turn to the earth and do not ask for gold.
Just, Lord, please, no blood in the bathroom, the bed.

First blood sent me from bathroom to bed—
red in the bowl not the kind that meant children.

Red on my knees, ten years old, a child,
trials I hardly survived. Yet, we say blessed.

I have survived. We are all or none blessed.
People claim nothing grows in the desert,

so, we believe: Nothing grows in the desert.
We give women dirty names that mean empty.

Give ourselves dirty names that mean empty.
I have seen the New Mexico sky bleed,

I have seen the New Mexico sky bleed
into the earth! Have seen dirt turn gold.

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Abby lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she is a community and staff member at Women Writing for (a) Change. She was a 2021 finalist for the Great Midwest Writing Contest, and has work published in the Midwest Review, The Pittsburgh Poetry Journal, The Watershed Review, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, In the Roots, arrives fall 2021 from Finishing Line Press.