Pleiades: Literature in Context

they find her shivering stained t-shirt over wild bare legs        in an alley         my mother's body in the shapeof unknown food chewed         by a scatter of teeth        I never saw her mud-matted fishing-wire hair but

my brother offers to send me the picture he took of her when        he showed up like a heart attack that day thatgathered into years when she was        lost         a child with the senior's special

schrödinger's mom         dead (not dead)        her missing body chiseled to ice under a bridge every timeit snowed        No        I hear myself say         leave me

my memories of her before she ate dumpsters without underwear        spare me the mouth that once spun my lullabieswhen she was all bare-footed earth-skulled lunulae        I have so little         little girl in me left [End Page 33]

my mother knew my name the one she gave me        talked to me same as her father gone ten years nowseen him last week in her ceiling

I need to tell grandpa the birds         oh I forget their names        are waiting for their packages of weatherand string and blue china dishes         the ones we use on        easter         he knows the one

I am with you now, mother, feeding you five cheese ziti from olive garden while        a woman frothing at the head rocks and screams         your brokenstare        two eyes two punched out windows         one for each vanished son        you hallucinate         the only way to get them to visit you

ice in my sockets melting down my cheeks I leave you in a confusion        happier than truth punch the code steel doors open leads to the firstthread of hallways past motionless wheelchairs bouquets of pissneurotic light bulbs flickering dark         in this cement palace

where you will die in the corner next to a phone that never rings        a folder squeezing a single slip of paper with my namedate and time in small handwriting that proves        that yes, mommy         I saw you [End Page 34]

a woman in muted scrubs asks me if I am your daughter        tells me you are her favorite that you write me lettersbackwards in the swatch of window near your bed        because         you say         I live in the tree outside your forever room

you write to me like a child on a fogged car window         messages        to a passing stranger speeding down an unpaintedhighway because grandpa visits you in the sky

                but I,                        I live in your tree [End Page 35]