32
	-------------------------------------------------
	
	i can write about my mother
	and my restless life
	but i cannot write about the exhaustion of 
	getting everything i want
	how i am embalmed in gratitude
	
	i am not a lizard or a snake 
	or a crab 
	or even the spiral of a nautilus
	i do not become new
	with every turn
	instead, the years have stuffed my skin
	like a sausage, and i want to burst
	with my own tangled words
	like an egg dropped too hard
	into boiling water
	white curds coagulating in the churn
	
	let the skin grow over
	the thorn i pressed into your palm
	let these words ripen in the dark like fruit
	we are moths, circling our
	brightest moments



august 04, 2005