July 12, 2004

For Ellen Miller

No one has to tell me how it will be. I can unfold all the tricky corners, the careful creases, this origami elephant life.

I cannot forget any of the pieces, however paper-cutting, nor will it let me forget, matte finish tusks threatening.

I miss my mother. I miss who she was, sharing myself with the woman I fear she may never be again. Must I be with her now to be there when she comes back? That warm and recognized gesture, her smell and her tough, delicate little hands?

How do I know she will come back at all? Don't women learn to lie forever, to spare themselves the agony of telling the truth?

Will I lie to myself someday, too?

I don't want to be a woman, then, or not that decieving sort. I'll be an element, like water, or earth, or cooking oil. I'll fry the bones of me in the fat of me and the smoke that rises will be my essence, my shade-self.

I'll start with this, my pen hand, a writer's soul's tool. I was born with all of the ink I'll ever need, here in my veins, and won't it mean so much more, then? Slowly killing oneself for art?

Like a heroin addiction. Soon I'll start shooting up poetry, lines in perfect meter up my forearms.

I'll start.

astera at 11:54 p.m.

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