the golden salmon sky beckons
before the orange orb emerges and the blue arrives
i call you to the glass doors for the eastern view
but you move with an intentional, sabotaging slowness,
without the respect, the urgency
that ephemeral light and beauty require of us

that’s just one difference between me and you,
i am keeping watch, i stay ready for some thing holy,

and you, you clock-watch for the mundane:
for the mail, for dr. phil, a rush only to ever get “it” all over with — the chore, the trip, the holiday, the ceremony, the meal, the dishes, even the damn dessert and bedtime prayer /

nothing ever truly experienced — or savored by you

save for your anger, your resentment,
and that ever-lasting gobstopper of hate, that you nurse in your cheek, its bitterness, sourness, leaching down into,

embalming, your still-living heart

how did i be-come me with you as a mother?

i wept for the 80 year-old cracked elm that had to be felled,
more than i have for you in your latest fall, where you felled yourself again
still, i am ashamed to admit that — even to myself:
that i could let go of you, now, easier than a tree i knew for a mere seven years

but the cleaved tree had more integrity

and you are the one who hacked it all down, burnt us, burnt me down, so, all that remains of us now is a future of vesseled ash to collect,

for storage on a closet shelf

or dresser drawer

not on the mantle,

not on the nightstand,

look, at this, my viper, my constant voyeur,

look at my ever-present wound, my cicatrix, oozing of shame and pity and guilt

bequeathed to me, by you,

it won’t ever heal.