Come here. Stand in the garden. Let me throw lemons at you. 

         Let me fold you into this paper plane and fly you 

around the room. I’ll crash you into every corner 

              until you sense burden. Every morning I say put on a bra 

and every morning I do not mean it. 

 

I do not understand this part of myself. I am consumed 

          by hands. I break 

your ribs in an embrace that is more apology than bicep. 

          What if we crawl like babies

through the rooms of my youth. I’ll show you the guardsmen, 

 

the lines I stood in for pills tipped beneath my tongue.

          We can sneak into my bed with the metal door. 

I’ll pull out my diary and the places my mother hated 

          me and the knife I kept in my desk. 

Come here little one, my green-eyed valentine. 

 

What will happen to you when the world stops 

          loving you. Should I walk out of the room 

or should I lay on the floor and listen to you cry. 

          I never know. 

I never know who I am when I look at you. 

 

You look just like me and I look 

          just like her. This year, I painted flawless 

 red valentines on your cheeks, 

          not the beating throbbing thing I could hear in your chest 

when you were small enough to hold. 

 

Twelve years ago, I held your infant body to my ear. 

          I heard a different sound

and I knew then not to cut into you 

         so that I could pull out parts of me. I must 

remember that this year, 

 

how your heart makes the sound

           of a different heart. A still there heart,

even though I can’t get my ear close enough to hear it. 

          Let me back into the closet of my chest, between the ribs 

and the empty space of motherhood. I have been crying.