If I stay alive long enough
to write this life into something
less tragic, more tragic,
would it earn me those apples
skinned and sliced and faceted
into jewels? My mother gave me
everything she had: half her nose.
Her bowstring mouth. Her goddamn
when I drop something. Her skipped
articles when I think in a language
I can’t speak. Even her silence
is a gift. How she waited up for me
with the wrong cigarettes and I smoked them
anyway because they came from her.
The proof of me scrawled into her belly
like a will, and she didn’t even get mad
when I bled on the carpet, drunk off a nightmare
I was exactly who I was. The difference
between a miracle and a cataclysm. The typhoon
out of season she can’t believe she lived through.
Could there be more to this life than holding
what she had to carry? Even if it hurts,
and it hurts. How could I tell her it’s too much?
How could I tell her it’s not enough?
