late birthday poem '08

My mother used to

tell me when I was younger that

my face was not hers, not her husband's, as well.

It belonged to the sea, she said, and my small poems

were fish that kept

moving with the waves. They move because you are, she used

to say, in that conversational manner

of hers that irritated me. Now that

I am half past 20, I hardly believe that anymore. I mean,

what I really want is to hold on to that smirk

she had while she said it. The

years confused me, made me bored

with memory and atonement. But I have forgiven this woman

and her hard eyes, so dark,

they were almost golden. If it is at all possible

to end this poem the way she had,

nakedly losing and having everything all

at once, this is how I would have done it.