Saturday you painted your mother flying
over a house, her bulbous body holding you firm.
It was easier then to ask you who you hated
instead of who you loved
because your mother’s hair was red
mixed with clouds. It was easier then
to take you to the bed lick away all the color
with my tongue. But I did not.
I merely traced your mother with my thumb
then the small outline of your body beneath hers.
Oh my skeletal bird, if I only understood
poison in the blood how it travels down, spreads
like water on a cloth. Would I have loved you then?