Pictograph by Alex Dawson

"I am an early painting on the wall of my mother’s womb."

Pictograph
by Alex Dawson

I am not myself. I am 
an early painting on the wall 
of my mother’s womb. My first 
poem is inside her, dripping

with her rage. I’m sorry, 
Mother, I have always needed
to create against destruction. 
I am a rearrangement 

of the many things that tried,
and failed to kill me. There 
was a wound. I crawled out of it 
toward a gash of light. Who am I?

All of these years, I have been 
asking the same question. I am
on my hands and knees, trying
to crawl my way back in.