We Were Twisted Ladders
DNA Stores memory;
I wonder what my body thinks of me.
A molecular blueprint–
Find me where the veins meet prairie,
And you’ll find the way I held my fingers, intertwined
With the dying. The way I held my sister’s lap and sang to her
A Bushel & A Peck, a hug around the neck,
As my ribs concave–
And I knew I’d have to leave her, eventually.
We are double helixes, a spiral curve,
Like the vertebrae that hurt
Before the storms cross from your state to mine, across highways
Mowed down by water.
The water that made us, I suppose.
Or, I suppose, the order doesn’t matter.
The spiral curves of fingerprints
Remind me of ice skaters twisting with their frozen bodies
Around the archways of the pond
On a winter day, learning how to do a triple
Axle. Learning how to fall to fly,
Learning how to hold their ankle way up high– learning that
They bend
And do not break.
I pass down my heritage
Even if my heritage forgets me.
A string, a shape that molds
Before we understood the meaning behind our names.
Before we understood
That the way my body was formed
Came from my Mom
But not what she gave me.
We are twisted ladders
Of cells we cannot see, name from a lens
Of looking that we don’t fully understand. The microscope tells us we’re all the same, yet unique. So, when I cry
Do you hear me?
When I change, do you feel that I lost
What made me?
If I could, I’d go in & pluck
Out weary, violin strings
Of meaning. Make me more compassionate here,
Make the brain forget that day she told me I didn’t matter,
There. I close my eyes and I almost feel the way she whispered me into existence,
And then forgot to hold the rest in her hand, forgot the path to find
What makes me, me. Telling me to stop writing
Stop dreaming
And to stand with two feet
The feet she made
And I should,
I should,
Be grateful for that.
The Hollows for the [Motherless] Stars
I would pop popcorn, even though it wasn’t a safe food. I’d say the word mother and hear all the vowels. “Why do you watch that filth?” She’d say from the corner. But for an hour, it didn’t matter where I was. For an hour, she would braid my hair and tell me that boys don’t matter – shopping does – and that when we fight we look cute after, and make up. Sure there’s that season where they go adrift too – but everything repairs itself again – with a burger and a coffee. I can repair myself, in only a man – if someone – asks me to coffee. If someone – anyone – makes me a Santa burger. If someone – anyone – tells me I look like Rory, but act like her in season one.
And I pop my poptarts and laugh in strawberry–
And I braid my own hair, the crumbles falling on the floor. I don’t pick them up right away, and laugh about sugar toes and dreams aplenty. Pretend it’s lint instead of moms on screens, pretend I’m made of air and eat carbs and no one will make fun of me –
Pretend there are worlds where women are strong,
And mothers wrap their arms around them, and only miss a beat for a season,
And swing around again.
(And, yes, I’m not a Dean).
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