My Mother as Moon

Though I stormed the weathered

blood of her ancestors, I wanted milk
when I arrived. She promised food but

fed me iron. I starved. I dimmed into slack.

I wanted to be daughter and she said,
mother me. I was born in an asylum

of dawn, stream of light in my mouth.
I was transfixed by the pines

and all their green hands. On
ground blurred with dirt, quartz

gleamed like gristle. Now she nods out,
bent petals on stem, cratered leg crimson.

I tend the relics of her wounds.

From A Guide to Tongue Tie Surgery