My virginity
was hole my Catholic mother dug
in our garden
a paradise the always summer
and my virginity
with crumbled dirt on its edges
my mother with her iron shovel
of God
and I grafting apple trees
and planting them
while she watered me
with holy water
My virginity was her labor of love
while I pocketed the coins
I stole from her antique desk
to buy something sweet
chocolate smooth as a baby’s palm
something sweet for me alone
and she forever in the garden
trying to make something out of me
by making me fence the bed
from the rabbits
who can fuck all day
flimsy fence
with no barbs
because my mother loved me
too much
to make me threaten blood
She wore a red hat
with a wide brim
and a golden cross
and she kept digging
and I with my lightning clit
and I with my empty womb
was doomed to disappoint
oh, Mother,
the days were so long then
the soil so fertile
even the worms couldn’t sleep
and when the foxes died of mange
there were too many rabbits
They hopped about the periphery of the fence
they were as foolish as I
thinking every day
might be their last
and our lazy dog
just rolled in the grass
She liked to feel
how dense the green grows
supine on her back
open to the strong muscle of sun
empty sky begging for its light
and getting all of it
every piercing beam
bees droning in the lavender
crickets rising from the ground, singing
and that animal body
also rolling
in every shadow
my hunger cast
Kika Dorsey is a poet and fiction writer in Boulder, Colorado. She has a PhD in Comparative Literature and her books include the chapbook Beside Herself and three full-length collections: Rust, Coming Up for Air, and Occupied: Vienna is a Broken Man and Daughter of Hunger, which won the Colorado Authors’ League Award for best poetry collection. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times. Currently, she is a lecturer at the University of Colorado in literature and creative writing. Her novel, As Joan Approaches Infinity, is coming out with Gesture Press in 2023. In addition, she works as a writing coach and ghostwriter. In her free time she swims miles in pools and runs and hikes in the open space of Colorado’s mountains and plains.
