My Own Private Idaho
I am in the auburn room
of my chewed through stomach.
It is a shroud beyond the blackthorn trees.
I have left the rest of my flesh behind
and I am here with my mother.
She has never been before.
She fills it with prune juice,
then pulls herself into the open wound,
pressing down with her toes like cracked
black pebbles.
She tilts her head up. I make her promise
that it was never hatred.
I am glad to be here - it is the like
the beginning or the end.
Either way, there is no asphalt,
no reflection in the window at the train station,
nothing beloved departed from me, and
no breath of mine to
bereave.
I can read a room. I can
ignore it too.
I have denied myself on God’s behalf.
I have denied myself a biology.
The sandy dirt clutched in my fist,
let go of too quickly.
The grief becoming an artifact -
my own cancer
growing yellow carnations out of the base of my throat.