Your Shadow Invents You Every Time Light Fails to Pass Through You

Some days you wake to the sound of smoke pouring through

the keyhole in the room. Open your eyes. This is only a test. The bluing of

your hands can be anything you want. The bruised dawn

like a river rising to your windowsill. A purple forgetting how blood leaves

the body in ruin. A forsaken lip smeared in thirst resting on your lip

as though your skin could salvage the dream of being

so touched. Listen. I know you’re afraid—I am too. I know how the body

   prays

for beauty but remains a shipwreck you are building in my image. How

   many

books are enough to tell you you’re alive today? How many days end

up all dark & the monsters of your childhood appear like saints erased

of their mouths? How the mouth cradles a tongue carved by years

in exile until it’s ready to shape a word like a parting hand-

ful of promised wildflowers: Happy Mother’s Day. This is you

at the edge of a paradise growing back after being scorched from the face

of earth. This is us afraid of the men who fail to kiss us goodnight & step

   through

the walls. Some days you are living a nightmare. Some days a miracle as

   wide

as a spared life. Listen to me. There will be a day when the world will need

   you

most—be alive on that day. I vow your father is as American as

the bones your mother grew inside you. The gunshot

in your head is only a shadow puppet, a slow explosion of a field

of qém’es in early June’s bloom. Look. Look at the colors like little gods

on fire—hurdling in & out of each other’s terrified skies. Are you still alone

in bed? Is it morning yet where you are? The smoke turns

to rain as usual. Listen, my love. This year is just a visitor & next year’s

ghost. Take care of it because yes—yes, you do deserve flowers for once

in your life. You will be the only one left. So hold my hand & call me

tomorrow. We are all here. It’s okay—it’s okay to be this

afraid. I am you. Can you feel that? Yes, that is the whole world outside

moving without us. But listen to me. Listen. Here’s the light

an arm’s length away. The ceiling reforming

above you, like another heaven after its own self-

destruction. Here’s my body & you stretching lifelong

toward every hole in the house

left as warm as a father running from

horizon to horizon. Don’t be afraid. Touch me here

where, some days, it hurts. Get up, get dressed,

open the door.