The Day I Learn Her Diagnosis

I walk to clear my head.

There are no angels living under

the freeway overpass, no colors

where you are from, your brain

a jumble of neurons,

stretched and hiccupping.

Soon snow will come, fill

the negative space of your body’s

landing, erase all evidence

that once you painted a blank

canvas with your fear

unbuttoned. I have carried you

like a stone inside hope-emptied

pockets, like shame, like a word

I could not say out loud.

Now a voice, less heard than felt,

hallows my deepest parts,

opens me like a Bible.

Oh, Mama, can you picture it?

Me on my knees, the moon

in a mad orange flare.