Dear mother, how can I blame you?
When I sailed at youth through crooked branches
And depthless purple waters. Your hand outreached,
Trying to catch lustful shooting stars lovers see when they stop looking,
Soon turned skeletal, flesh sunken like sand into bone,
Veins swollen like rivers in emaciated lands.

Dear mother, alone, prowling summer storms
Rained translucent mirrors and haunted
You with jaded cinnamon smiles.
Why did you gorge color from your eyes and flash broken smiles at me?

Dear mother, I wish, like electric fish,
My hands could dip into your blurry corneas
And snap fire blue lemons that crackled
Like dry grass fireworks.
But, dear mother, you surrendered to garish Las Vegas dreams,
Tempting an exploration of solipsism.

Dear mother, please, I envy your faces like lonely fire stars the pale cracking moon.
Everywhere gracious puppet strings dance through the night.
The bearded grizzled gray oaks whisper out of tune.
The wind once cried Mary, now it shrieks sorrow in all the colors of charcoal.

Dear mother, I beg you,
Let’s wind up and make circles in paper snow
If you promised me blankness
I’d promise you love and silk fingertips.
Dear mother, once more,
If you’d give me blankness,
I’d give you the other,
In silent rapture, I’d sit and watch you cry silver, and laugh at the memory sweeter than marmalade rain.