unlike my mother i never invited you in.

or invited you out. unlike my mother and i,

i never in my heart stayed dead-cat quiet

in the dark knowing you knew she was there

with me, hiding (from what, i never found out)

you turned, though. she made you turn.

like milk. the curdle unexpected. you never

saw it coming

sour swallow

sallow, saline

the best by date quite broken in the years to come -

unlike my small soft feet that were brown and ready to run

(from what, i am still finding out)

empty rooms became thrones each one.

my game. only. mother taught me to play.

i thought me so wise, what a price,

this thrice eye

we spoke about it once.

in the big yellow car.

i knew then how she had spoiled your life.

and you kept it up.

sons begatting sins and life moves on.

you were god. as cruel to your own

as he seems to be to his. the fathers visiting

the sons and all that. and boy, did you visit them

well. they still show their scars to their own,

those who chose to have an own. the others

live lonely but pay forward badly, nonetheless.

in this dried up world where death has been

at bones and pain holds hands with aching

hearts, trampled like so many dark grapes

for wines of vinegar and blood of sorrow,

we hang there like some dried up fishes

blowing in this desert wind. in that jumble, then,

so jinxed, so jammed up, so jimmied. they

hang there by some very slender thread. ready.

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