You are so bitter,
dark coffee and sage. Didn’t mama teach you
not to hate?

She didn’t. I know.
She’s always drowning in it all.
She grab’s your foot—
not your brother’s
—yours.
You are the daughter.
You go down.
You are the only one who ever learned
how to breathe
in sea water.

Those shoulders,
they’re sharp.
Like bandsaws they swipe
at every sack slung for them.

Cigarettes make good cake.
The oven moans
for your face.
You wonder about good unclean fun,
doubloons,
the air without liquid.

You are tightening.
In anxiety you rattle from all that
pent-up rage.
You are slipping into
dark corners, to feel alone,
and you are chilled by the lonely marrow
that has harden all your bones.
You are sickened
by the boys
who shove you towards the grave.

People tell you that you,
not him,
is what it means to be home.

Those cement feet are aching,
yearning to break
all the world, just so for a moment you may
touch
the sky.

That is all you want.

To clutch a man,
in his own land, and say,

All I dreamt about was this view.

For that you would die.