All Her Household Are Clothed with Scarlet "The girl can’t help it." I start to count her vertebrae. Again I lose track. How can I be sure she’s human? Her words are too big for her jaws. They dangle like the black tails of struggling mice. How can I know if she’s a woman? Where she puts her heel, water pools. When she bites, jasper blossoms. How can I be sure she’s human? Her arms outstretched hang the morning star. Her perfumed dress has worn to rags. How can I know if she’s a woman? What she touches becomes human. If I must be born again, may I be born again of woman? Locks pop open when she walks by. © Reid Mitchell Reid Mitchell is a New Orleanian teaching in Quanzhou, China. He has published poetry in In Posse, Pedestal, Cha, and elsewhere. He often writes with Tammy Ho Lai-Ming. Their works has appeared in Admit2, Barrow Street Review, and elsewhere. He has also published fiction and academic history.