& yes, my family did raise me right. Yes, / they cleaned their bones & cracked them clean / open to suck. Would fight over cartilage & knuckle/Sip the marrow’s nectar from urn. .
In my meanness I hear the mother of my mother and her mother / before her, the cold cellars and flat pillows of their hearts. The single current / of anger that ran through their voices, each daughter forever through time / believing herself a burden.
In Buddhism, there is always an expression on this and that, and the yes and no of this and that. For example, the other side of the river is a metaphor of death, in contrast to this life, this side. I hope that poetry is a way to shatter the border.
The first boy to call me beautiful / had hair like a waving fist, walked / down the hallway, radius of curl / beckoning white hands that he’d / allow, though, I’d watch a little / light in him dim to tar.