Twin
Daughters
october 2019
i visit her image
and each time, i drop a petal
they turn to sediment
in the corner where she hangs
i pull back her rubber skin –
and it holds flowers
it holds dirt
it holds flocks of flightless chickens
stretched taut, confident atop cheekbones of desire
and it looks just like mine
when i visit my other mother
she asks me to bring her
a kind of generosity that demands everything
a kind of gift that was always yours
she sits beside my bed
her gaze collapsing the space between us
a strange vessel that’s mostly a gaping hole
my body is a sleeping bag with three zippers
small mom, old mom, queer mom
each grab a zipper and pull
inverting flesh and bone
it becomes easier for them to devour me
she spends her afternoons with her palms in humus
and each time, i drop a petal
they turn to sediment
in the corner where she hangs
i pull back her rubber skin –
and it holds flowers
it holds dirt
it holds flocks of flightless chickens
stretched taut, confident atop cheekbones of desire
and it looks just like mine
when i visit my other mother
she asks me to bring her
a kind of generosity that demands everything
a kind of gift that was always yours
she sits beside my bed
her gaze collapsing the space between us
a strange vessel that’s mostly a gaping hole
my body is a sleeping bag with three zippers
small mom, old mom, queer mom
each grab a zipper and pull
inverting flesh and bone
it becomes easier for them to devour me
she spends her afternoons with her palms in humus
massaging out the wisdom of massachusetts
it smells nothing like hayama
but it’s the same messy, palimpsestic
hotness
of staying
of the house of belonging built over fault lines
as twin daughters of conquest
we weave theology of disaster
her shears trim my toes
they lie like baby carrots beside her basket
with dying breath they whisper flight
it’s not that i don’t love home
it just doesn’t belong to me
i traced her face ten thousand times a day –
in mud
in ash
in dry blood
into stomachs
and overlapping mine
until she made me promise i would stop
today i am wearing the sunset
you asked me to describe my perfect day
i said any if i can see its edges
it smells nothing like hayama
but it’s the same messy, palimpsestic
hotness
of staying
of the house of belonging built over fault lines
as twin daughters of conquest
we weave theology of disaster
her shears trim my toes
they lie like baby carrots beside her basket
with dying breath they whisper flight
it’s not that i don’t love home
it just doesn’t belong to me
i traced her face ten thousand times a day –
in mud
in ash
in dry blood
into stomachs
and overlapping mine
until she made me promise i would stop
today i am wearing the sunset
you asked me to describe my perfect day
i said any if i can see its edges