Heart Berries: A Memoir

by Terese Marie Mailhot

You think weakness is a problem. I want to be torn apart by everything.

rove

I feel fortunate with this education, and all these horrors, and you.

Today, in front of a slew of white authors, during a fellowship, with a drink in my hand, I said that I was untouchable. There was a gasp, and maybe it was a hundred years of work for my name to arrive here, where I can name my pain so well that people are afraid of the consequences and power.

That’s how love works for a spirit like you: a determined torture. Who could fault you? Did you come from misery?

transubstantiation?

You are formless to me now. But, still, your pine and winter willow are in my body. As are my grandmother’s olive seed and red hill earth.