Karma

death of the self is the losing

of individual choice

even if choice had been lost

long ago, at birth, for example

when someone said you were a girl

as if girlness represented

more than a cultural construct

labeling you as inferior

or when someone noticed

you were brown or black or yellow

a degenerate alien object

yet another construct

peddled by whites, by males

waving their pricks 

like rain-gorged earthworms

flipping & flopping

until the robins swarm down

oops — karma