All Her Household Are Clothed with Scarlet by Reid Mitchell

"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.



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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.