At night, a woman without eyes
carries a bucket, sloshes water,
washes a mother’s wounds.
She walks with me
around white cocaine mountains
through puddles stained
red with birth

I carry my camera
but I can’t photograph
the baby’s scream.
It rakes my nerves
like fingernails

I can’t shoot
the smell of diarrhea,
the babies’ bottoms
blistering, as drugs
leave their bodies

In a little girl’s brain
a black hole
sucks my heart

—Kira Corser