Dear Melissa: [I wish you]

I wish you (my mother once told me—mother of my child-

hood—even though water is water-weary—what is prayer if not quiet

who has made me—what hands you become when you touch—

who laid down on whose body—whose face and whose shoulders

worth shaking—what will I not hear when I look back

at you—who is not the mother of a daughter—who is not

the mother of a man—we are right to be afraid of our bodies—wind

is carried by what is upright and still moves what has) had

(been buried deep enough in the ground to be called roots—

when will this be the world where you stop—whatever broke 

into you was torn by the contact—a face wears a face it can see—

what is alive is unrecognizable—need it be—who is my mother,

mother—no one—who hasn’t killed herself by

growing into someone—I’m sorry you have) never been born