An erratic thing
I watched you take away my mother in three parts.
You did do it, and I saw with some kind of helplessness as you crept
Like a shadow, the cool crux of night to fall upon her and take her away from me, you
did do it, you did.

I had no hands to help her. I’d left them on the airplane
that buzzed and hummed and galloped across the ocean to bring me to her.
And behind me there were my hands, my face and the bits of me that she might not want
anymore, cold fingers to tuck my hair behind my ears and she told me
that sometimes people jump off bridges.

1.
The first part was subtle, clever thing, you did do it.
Your took her skin and made her face all bone and white like a premonition
I saw you in her. When I was little she hid you behind closed doors
Red eyes dead eyes homestead bread eyes, she was vacant
You snaked through her in the first part and she tried to beat you away,
a club of alcohol and the blunt instrument of faith
But you took her skin and made her face all bone
and I watched you take my mother away in the first part and my mother my mother
“Sometimes people jump off bridges”

2.
burning, turning, relearning how to walk after her was newness.
I did not see my mother then, save reflections in March waterpools
beneath the crush of my black boots. I did not see you, I did not see you do it.
I found that trees bloom in different months in other places and I lived in celcius
in chronological order and I did not see my mother then.

I crawled back to her and I you were there, you great black beast, you brute
sitting behind her eyes, fat and dripping slipping overflowing from the rims
of red eyes dead eyes homestead bread eyes, she was no longer vacant.
You crouched in the coven of her ribcage and you took my mother’s gentle hands
My hands were on an airplane, I had no hands to help her, I’d left them in celcius,
Chronological order.
Paraplegics.
Sometimes people jump off bridges.

3.
it was like an epitaph. You took away my mother in three parts,
wrested the last bit of her from me with angry words and I watched her slip beneath
a shield, a shadow, the cool crux of night.
sometimes I see the ghost of her, a gentle hand on my face. I see her in reflections,
old movies, Sunday breakfast, red cardigans
You fooled others but you have no fooled me, you did do it, you did do.
You took her face from me. She is red eyes dead eyes homestead bread eyes
She is an erratic thing
You took away my mother in three parts

Sometimes people jump off bridges.