Making Up

I had to approach her as an idea
Not yet contoured

Where she might have shrunk I picked up
Eyebrow pencils

And made her submit
Her face under my forearm

So what if my mother was more shadow
Than shade

What I see in her face, I wonder,
Does it show?

The under-eye crash diet of the soul
A mouth hiding from a voice

What if my tools dispense light

I cocked my chin to move closer
And I noticed she held her breath

The more petrified the mother
The more she fears her daughter

I would rather create something new
Out of us

But I am also being mineralized
Rapidly over ages

I have a threadbare vocabulary
A stagnant nature
Like a pond that has seen better days

So heavy in my blood
Murky and parasitic

I am making up my mother’s face
In my own image,

An act not unlike forgiveness —
pruning, weeding, fondling,

Gloves on, mending wire fences

Someday I’ll have a daughter
But for now, I work with what I have

Her face is diffident
Unforthcoming in a way
I’m too chicken shit to prod

My mother is a receding gale
Thunder in her own weather

The more studied a forecast
The more potent its threat

Off stage ballerinas look like cattle
After a roundup, tired, pulsing

I ran away from my mother
To wear exquisite perfume

And cradle a small dog

I’ve lived like a poet
And worked like a man




Reprinted from The Gone Thing (Winter Editions, 2023) with permission of the poet. All rights reserved.