My Mother, The Plant Metaphor

My mothers body is a garden my father
cannot curb
a fruit placing itself in a chokehold
if you do not know what weeds look like
a plant, is just a plant
a body, is just
a body
but a body can have overgrowth
be the dirt that springs it’s own suffocation
my mother
says that the cancer has been rooting
for twenty seven years
been an unidentifiable bloom
on her stomach the doctors never keyed out
been a thing she has reared
longer than me, which is to say
cancer has been my wombmate
a sharp eyed twin,
who bent veins to balloon our hunger.
today, my mother is a new
person & yet the same
I have known all along

By Chestina Craig 

Biography:

Chestina Craig lives in Long Beach, CA with her cat. Her work has been published in Black Napkin Press, The Rising Phoenix Review, Incandescent Mind, KINGS ZINE, L’EPHEMERE Review, Femme Fotale (photography), and others. She has presented her work at The Presidents Commission on The Status of Women, The Young Women’s Empowerment Conference presented by Congressman Allen Lowenthal, The Orange