[tanja, i’m afraid i’m done writing now]

tanja, i’m afraid i’m done writing now. i’ve tried so willingly to live.
put good stones in my pockets. learned to name nuthatch, flicker,
feathergrass, two types of daisy, thistle too. i know what grows to hurt you.
that weeping doesn’t get the goods. destruction does. i was little when i learned,
having rattled my crib to wood chips. having broken a cricket’s back.
i told the only man i’ll marry if i cannot have a home. left my home
for twelve days to reconsider longing. in the foothills of a different mountain,
saw a rat snake, creosote, ten quails, a stone worn smooth by ancient streams.
i’m telling you i’ve lived. i know i cannot save my mother, i’d just like to love her
better. know where i’ll go when she goes, which she can’t. not before i’m perfect.
not before i learned how to write it down again, how to say how i long to be
big enough by now, to love her and lose her, as wholly as i’m meant & by her
i mean everything—birdsong, my mind, the month of october, how even still
i’d like to be wonderful. i’ll settle for saying i’m hungry. now i feed me
yellow flowers, good cheese, radishes sliced thin, an egg my friend jenny gave me
made meticulously, with a yolk like sun butter, melting into jam & eaten
with green olives, yogurt, the expensive almonds. i’d make my mother breakfast
but she won’t let me in her kitchen. how can i tell you her name? come in.
i know nine million words for god.