Split
Mother, I wish I could twin myself and tuck you in
to your blanket cocoon. You say the cold eats at your bones,
and I know, because last time I heard crumbling marrow
roll through you like rain. Mother, there are feathers
stuck in my throat. I wish for a twin with telepathic lips
against your good ear. Let her relay that yesterday
a swarm of cedar waxwings picked clean your daughter’s
ligustrum of fruit. The daughter who moved to warmer climes,
because you said—remember?—everything would be okay.
Let this slightly more beautiful child help you find the perfect tilt,
suspend your legs, undo gravity’s pressure. I made sure
she knows your fleece throw should fold under your feet,
that your worn pillow is to cradle your head,
and it’s your left ear to which she should bend when she says:
your far-away daughter sends love from her new, green yard.
Her voice chimes like mine, but may sound sweeter as it swirls
into your inner ear. Mother, don’t let her vibrations fool you
if through thin cochlear fluid you hear:
I am the girl who loves you best. My twin is prone to lie,
even as she leans, her silken hair glancing your eyes. The laws
are different here. From twelve hundred miles away, I duplicate.
I splinter. I fly. Mother, I float to your ceiling, drift over
your body. Your body my heart once beat in,
where as a dark cluster of cells I began furiously to split.
