Origin Story

I was born above the Baptist church,
in the attic with all the old prayer books,
covers oiled slim, my mother stitched
my skin into a long canvas, painted
the Ohio River, a thin line down
the back of my knee, before I became
something she wound me onto a spool,
hitched to the other side of the altar,
she showed me to the congregation,
how the flesh of my stomach puckers
like a god-kiss, and that could just
be the sun over the waves, my belly
button, a barge full of coal. I became
animated, bend of my smile, a life
in the construct—the ladies down
front nodding, hats in laps—
before I learn to clasp my hands
in prayer, I am shown to the world
for what I can give it, shores upon
rocky shores, an image of beauty,
my face, this body a long portrait
of the landscape from which
it came.