The trauma of childhood can be summed up in a question that comes out of my mother's mouth one day— Do you want me to return you to where you came from? She is furious over something I've done: break a vase, scribble on the lampshade with a marking pen, melt her lipsticks in the sun. It isn't till much later that I mull over what she's said, then learn— opening certain doors leads back but not to the tangled dark of her womb. Dress after dress hangs in the armoire, each one a serged or tufted wonder, each one a sheath I cannot wear. The last one comes with a bridal veil—meaning, she was chosen, not the sister who helped sew on seed pearls and rosettes. This one held me like a secret before easing me into the world; she, pried open before the pericarp closed in around her. I cannot peel any fruit with my fingers, can't undo a single button without spiraling toward them— twin flames flickering on a makeshift altar, the wax melted down to one corded wick.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.