From the distance I hear,
"She was her only daughter."
it's my husband, but the words hang
humid in cemetery air
I respond, speaking in tongues,
primal snake screams
tangled, incoherent, alone-
the only child, daughter,
of a single mother, I cannot explain.
I am a sticky, extension of my mother,
a growing appendage,
whipping independence-naïve ignorance
my base attached firmly by nerves,
soaked in her sweat,
reeking of her fears,
tasting her thoughts,
pumping her blood
I'm the tremoring tail severed,
flopping illusion of life,
from a lizard long gone-
A cubic hole, my mother fits in ground.
Not an orphan, not a child,
it's not that my mother died,
beyond grief, I am not whole.
Returning home, I want to call her
only to think of the time difference before
that looming truth, she's dead.
It snows the next week,
I worry she is cold and alone too,
but know that my voice is still with her
under the white blanket,
slinking in the dirt with the worms.
