mother

"I'm alone," she says.

"I want my mother."

 We rise like zombies from graves of blood that were made for us with love.

 Once risen we stumble, searching.

"I want my mother," she repeats and keeps her eye on the door but no one ever comes.

We were once babies, all of us, and we once cried for someone.  Some of us were rocked and heard soft voices in the night.  The rest of us stopped wailing after a time and wept inwardly instead.

"I am alone," she says.

And people walk by, holding hands, and she weeps

And people walk by, laughing, and she weeps.

Because something was lost, long ago

We travel forever down these bloody rainbows, attached to nothing

prayer

every day I live my roots

praying to mary,

blessed antithesis of my self

co-dependent but warm

 i pray to mary that

she will save me

crouched by my bed i live my roots

pray to mary that i am not my mother

that the face in the mirror is faceless

faithless

bleary mornings i live my roots

explain to the wallpaper

why i can't speak

because in this bedroom

time stops

and stuffed animals kneel

on the blanket of my heart

where bedbugs bite and women fall over and over again

To Hart, whom God created

to Hart, Whom God Created

Face hidden by one phantom hand, you are exquisite.

Hart, God knows where you are hiding.

Sad

It made me sad to see her pictures, my sister says, green eyes gleaming in the moonlight.  We're driving and I know what she means.

Because somewhere out there in the night there is a woman who seems not to have any photographs at all.  But there are, and we have seen them.

In my peripheral vision, from the window of the car, I see her.  She's skipping rope or holding a baby doll, smile fixed like a moment captured in ice, dark hair framing her tiny European features.  She looks like she is happy.

A moment later she is in flared blue jeans and that same smile, only now it is sunless and there are other people there too.   Then more, but she is disappearing in the rain and when I roll down my window to call out her name, she is gone.

This is where I came from, this frightened dilution of self.

She was pretty, my sister says and I realize suddenly how tired I am.  I want to cradle this invisible creature, this woman who disappeared as if by magic while we were looking the other way.