Naomi Lazard
A LETTER TO MY DEAD MOTHER
Floating between the islands
on a hastily constructed barge,
wood gnawed through by my own teeth,
I hastened to begin again before
the green silt right down on the bottom
chained me like a barnacle.
So I became like water, drop by drop,
falling against the wind
away from you. Twenty million
threads joined with beautiful
looped knots deep in the cerebellum
called out the cloud race:
Rien ne va plus.
Do you recognize your daughter,
the one you called mercurial?
I live in a house built by three
little pigs, of bones and wire.
This is a house of Wednesdays where
the week doesn't begin and never ends.
One shaft of pure moonlight
reveals it for what it is.
I flow like water through this place,
kneel at the window, watch you
take over the night.
You are lying down there in the street
with your arms flung out over your head
as if you were calling to me.
