I was born on the tip of my mother’s tongue

a spitfire of short-temper and strong will,
with a metal heart. There, I met
her.

She made me a friendship bracelet in third grade,
and told me to pull at the threads until they weaved
down my fingers, and across my arms,
stringing at each of my limbs-
she made me a game of Cat’s Cradle.
I ran down one end of the block,
trailing spools of thread,
while she ran down the other
waiting to see if our strings would cross,
and I don’t think we ever stopped.

One night, she cross-stitched a glass window
underneath my skin and filled the steel frames
with the lonely weight of longing. I saw
a route on the next midnight subway.

I’ve heard that cities are tiny demons with
bellies that grow larger every day until
they swell with the movement of the people
inside them.

I can tell time here in the dim light
that reflects off of gliding trains, from
the poppy fields that remember names
to the gravel roads that count by numbers
and I wonder if we can traverse backwards:

back when the slip of doubt that lingered
between her ill-bred palms
and the callous craters in my own
could meld in a handshake.

Then she’ll kick up the dusty asphalt
by the homeless man on 122nd street
and find my strings under the melting tar
in the tombs of the city.