Is This Your Sky or Mine?

The body just births more questions and that’s my future.

I try to quantify what we inherit—
dancers legs that know how to roam
but be church pious by morning,
the ability to fold shirts into a perfect square
or the street walk that says I’m a willing
dove but need no man or pierced jewelry.
I’ve learned that when the grease bubbles,
you put the fish in, nail polish will
stop a run in any stocking. Did you
mean to build something that lasts?
I want to give you a cinematic back-
story, far from southern charms and swamp
boys, but I can’t picture your shift
from girl to woman, mine but not, strong
but not. You tuck the girdle in so
the belly doesn’t roll, curl the feet like
commas. The body just births more
questions and that’s my future. I’ve
always been quietly wild and I’m sorry
for talking too fast, too much, but I’m trying
to catch all the unanchored parts of you—
rough magic, farm tales of double yolked eggs,
a collage of memories trapped in photo
albums because you rarely cover old ground.
I think every poem I write is about you Mama.