In the wake of receiving new eyes—
ball and white, red and black—
my intellectually adoptive grandmother
has departed her own gnarled hand,
likely moved on by neglect.

In her place the Scottish hag
Cailleach of my blood,
the same gnarled hand but missing
ring and pinky.

A red leather bracelet
sewn to my wrist—involuntary surgery—
whispers sanguinely to the half
of my innards that still
belong to the ragged dead hung on
my right ankle as I exited the womb.

-M.