~ after “Warning Mother” by Leonora Carrington
Only those who make mistakes
could aspire to wisdom:
the finger singed by flame
remembers what the stove hissed
in the morning, before even a single
thread of smoke wounded
the alarm on the ceiling.
And yet, a life spent in service
can turn one into a ghost: its slippers
shuffle in the hallway,
stumbling over
joints of furniture, vegetables
fallen from the colander, the family
cat. Every fish
out of water
retches with the effort to keep
safe, to remain
alive: it splits
itself in two– even then, thinking of
how many mouths there are to feed.