We lived in a field, far from others.
The view inside our lit house was 
easy, but looking out, we could 
only see the night. We were three 
females alone, the two girls and their 
mother. “Alone” is how she saw us, 
so we girls called ourselves that, too. 
No woodsman could save them.

I should have come straight to 
the notebook, but cleaned the 
silverware instead. 
The dream was 
of a time with no need of heroes,
men locked up for crimes against earth.
Corruption is disbelief in the future:
All of the shitty dads in the world.

    *

Some words have seasons, like berries.
Times when they are staining everyone’s lips
and times they wither away. Words will disappear 
like some seasons, except in old books.

Suffers is a word made up of letters.
Any speaking person can walk into a sentence.
A sentence will shelter you soundly.
Speak and walk through a house.

    *

(After Louise Bourgeois)

A mother is a spider,
her house a clinging web.
It means you are a spider,
too. Female.

“I shall never tire of
rrepresenting her.
I want to eat, sleep, 
argue, hurt, destroy.”


Menstrual blood kicks me out
of myself, entire, whole.
I seek to own the self, 
not the land, not a house.  

When a mother is not a spider,
she is a bronze statue of a woman, 
lifelike, but tenfold.

We cling to it, we don’t recall 
deciding to scale it.
We find ourselves mid-climb, 
its curves are hard to cling to.
My sister dangles above me.
It’s not possible to get to the top