And so this poem begins in my mother's plot. A square space of sparseness & seeds. When the holy book said we'd all return to dust, It didn't tell us how much moist we required not to be crushed into powder / & as I separate the wheat from tares, I learn how humanity is synonymous to hades / How the pigment in my skin meant my existence is warning signal & the  whiskers on my sisters face meant my mother defied the purity her 'chi' expected & laid underneath a torso from the west / I want to continue this poem without saying we might all wither  into space or burn like grass but my brain cell is shaped like the seedling in my biology textbook - so I ask my mother,

Where do I come from? Why are my bones as hard as rocks /My eyes shaped like pebbles / my ears halo like the entrance of a cave / my mouth an estuary & my limbs made like the branch of a tree? This poem will end with a cursory stare from my mother / she will say - this colour is grace / this birthmark is art & this face a mirrored replica of your ancestry / she will ask me if breath has colour, tribe or creed as I burn the tares to ash.