Mother

She never fails to mention

that the child is adopted.

Snows translucent as sleep.

 

Her secret about wanting to die

swims in her breath

a sly brutal eel,

 

reclines in her

motherhood

while

all she does

in the daytime

is wait for night.

 

Her bewildered pleasure

in the alchemy of these children

in these precise children

such inaccurate precis of her

of the signs of competence

she generates, grows

_