Origin Story
when you become mother, the crow says,
you will want an origin story. something
divisible by 14 lines. explainable. containable.
and the child? your mind whispers like perfume
in an empty room. straight into the brink!
that’s the crow again, master of the domains
and laughing like the maniac you deserve.
you’ve been child many times. it’s nothing new.
your own mother tilled soil beneath two
ungenerous apple trees, cursed their anemic
branches. now you understand
the pH wasn’t quite right. maybe that’s why
you bloomed in all the wrong ways. you know
the kind of girl you were, the crow growls.
the kind to swallow a rotten apple whole.
the kind to swallow and everyone knew it.
you begin to hate this story. maybe that was
where it all began, you say, defiant. it’s okay
to look for love, and anyways, nobody
ever says the apples choose hardness
because it is their own. children, before
they fall, dangle on such fragile stems.
* * * * *
Eve
morning light. selfishness
reigns. fruit unchopped.
i do not tend to it.
children in socked feet
sniffle in beds. i do not
tend to it. this hour?
i own it in a way i have
not owned anything
though it is 2023.
every molecule
hairline to belly
knows it,
shimmers in it.
i am well-
moisturized. books
uncracked. liturgies
unheeded. it’s me
and forbidden fruit
in my teeth. god knows
how much
i have wanted
in this life.
* * * * *
To life
Let’s imagine life an eternal flame.
Each face an unbearable light. Continents
aglow. Let’s raise holy sparks, why not,
transmit oxygen through prisms,
hold hands to screens and pray.
Let’s burn prayer circles
to the ground. The hands
are guns. The hymns bullets.
The soul viewed 9 million times.
But what if. The hands are oysters.
The hymns jewels. The soul a helix
of fiber optics that orbit the hospital
floors like rays of sunlight on the worst
day of your life. Let’s imagine Google
doesn’t know who will die, is not a cat
circling stiffened toes for 3 days. I learned
this happens from the hospice nurse who said
mothers can never let go. They take a long,
long time to die. My children want to know
what happens. What if. Let’s imagine
we live inside an orb of light.
Only strangers die, each face
a flame that leaps into the night.
We touch their blue skin
with our real, breathing hands.
They are inside the screen,
their future wiped clean.