Cauterized

If I go back to the place it begins: a stillborn twin sister, trains rattling the
crib. And I bury the memory for fifty years. Because I have my mother’s
smile and wear my mother’s rings. Because my father and I do not see eye to
eye. Because my parents never wanted me to be anything but saved. Call it
Friction burn. Say God has a price.

How many lost birds are too many? I have learned the words for offspring:
fledgling, cygnet, kitten, cub. My grown son couldn’t give blood because he
was my gay son; my daughter, that long scorch of meteor—burning, then
gone. Where is the god who watches the sparrow? Sing, Mommy; sing.

The river is pushing—always pushing—downstream. Near the hawthorn, I
find a jumble of tail feathers and wings. But you’re just a baby, I say. So much
easier not to let go.

I still turn toward a blond flash in a crowd, wonder if memory is in or of
water. And what, after all, is mine. These days, I am tired of loss. I am more
tired of preventing loss. But I believe, too—that everything rises, however
buried. Because there are scars and I forgive them. Because I was forced to
fold hands and pray.

Because pain is a bargain with the gods. So what life, this, and what next?
Once, my father built bridges. My mother was so goddamned happy, and no
one spoke of my twin sister again. Oh, daffodils, open to morning—inside,
songbirds and stones.

A friend asks if I believe in heaven. Such hunger; so little bread.