Zoe Zhang

fragrance mosquitoes 
summer in Italy
bags worth 
my blood plasma

pour me joy
in a cement barrel

bulldoze it 
until
grey is the outfit 
more than green

say how beautiful it is
to camouflage sick on the rocks

still the weeds
in the sidewalk cracks
always grow again

I build my ant colony 
where they’ve misstepped to break me

walking through the garage door - 
your linen collar smelled like
dusty offices
carrying
goodbyes neat in cardboard.
Even I noticed that 
your steps felt heavier that day. 

I ask if you are ok, 
You smile so I don't worry, 
I think you are painless -

The next month you strain for a job while I am at school 
you are anxiously hurting -
I am watching Bill Nye the Science Guy.
my eyes fixed on the screen, 
sure you are 
too perfect to wound

but
I realize now that motherhood is a wound -

see your youth fading 
alongside mine living 
find yourself locking
child proof lying

so your daughter could be a child for
as long as you could let her. 

I realize now that motherhood is a wound -
you cry at the breaking point. 
say you are sorry, but
I already think you are perfect. 

it's easy to leave the sick dog on the street
let its pain linger in torch lit stillness, 
forgetting is all you've ever known. 

flush the hurt to
depths too black for gold, it
doesn't matter until:
he asks you if you remember
you say you forget. 

change to clearer waters, 
start a new life, 
move to a new city to
laugh at new inside jokes, listen 
to new music on new playlists, play 
new symphonies in new orchestras and 
wait by new doors
but

i know you.
walk those shores, 
barefoot in shiny silk, 
hand in hand 
your transfigured life
trailing sand,
who hugs your toes like
children to mothers 

washed up the shore 
see whats left of him.

february - the same 
 life, symphonies, doors 

throw the waves and
cry eyes of sky
 into horizon waterline

when he asks you if you remember
you say you forget.