First Look

Alright, you’re broken
Say that much
Without the one fear you’ve never…

You know you have no choice
That much is clear
Say it once, straight through, as plainly as you can

Let pain provide the high relief

*

When I was a small boy
my mother found me irresistible
and so did not resist

*
She herself was a luckless carrier
a gene borne
along the dingy rivulets
of heredity
by a sin so old
it may be aboriginal

*

My mother, sitting on our porch
a rented farmhouse in Orleans, France
summer dress crisp and clean,
with a memory I make in this moment,
watching the sleepy road as I bury my head in cool linen
and my mother strokes my hair with fingers that smell
of cigarettes and a splash of spilled wine
or so it so vivid seems
the afternoon free and secluded
for mother and child

*