Your body is a song called birth

or first mother, a miracle that gave birth

to another exquisite song. One song raises

three boys with a white husband. One song

fought an American war overseas. One song leapt

from fourteen stories high, and like a dead bird,

shattered into the clouds. Most forgot the lyrics

to their own bodies or decided to paint abstracts

of mountains or moons in the shape of your face.

I’ve been told Mothers don’t forget the body.

I can’t remember your face, the shape or story,

or how you held me the day I was born, so

I wrote one thousand poems to survive.

I want to sing with you in an open field,

a simple room, or a quiet bar. I want to hear

your opinions about angels. Truth is, angels drink,

too— soju spilled on the halo, white wings sticky

with gin, as if any mother could forget the music

that left her. You should hear how loudly I sing

now. I’ve become a ballad of wild dreams and coping

mechanisms. I can breathe now through any fire.

I imagine I got this from him or you, my earthly

inheritance: your arms, your sigh, your heavy song.

I know all the lyrics. I know all the blood.

I know why angels howl in the moonlight.

Extraordinary efforts are being made
To hide things from us, my friend.
Some stay up into the wee hours
To search their souls. 
Others undress each other in darkened rooms.

The creaky old elevator
Took us down to the icy cellar first
To show us a mop and a bucket
Before it deigned to ascend again
With a sigh of exasperation.

Under the vast, early-dawn sky
The city lay silent before us.
Everything on hold:
Rooftops and water towers,
Clouds and wisps of white smoke.

We must be patient, we told ourselves,
See if the pigeons will coo now
For the one who comes to her window
To feed them angel cake,
All but invisible, but for her slender arm.