A Call From My Mother

 My mother calls me and stern faced says

“I have something to tell you”

I’m sorry you’re here to see me dissolve

I protect you from the composition

I cut up her stern vision

Because her brown eyes but the warmth is stolen or given up

When my brother’s habit for pills

got him a Utah tent

The sound of ex military commands

Plane intercoms, miles of desert protecting from cell service

“Do you love me, because I’m about to tell you something”

What did I have for dinner because my eyes went and soft

dissolving into the purest white a fallen angel ever opened hers to see

Imagination, don’t do this to me

My brothers body under a tree

A ditch by the highway

Bottom of the sea less of a boy

By the gurgling waves’ cream colored icing

He’s tossing he’s tossing

He’s gone he’s gone

I could have done more it’s my fault

My letters weren’t enough to keep his body afloat

In only a second my guilt ripped my body open

and all that spilled out was terrors too tired to wake gracefully

“I bought you a sewing machine”

A smile sharp breaks the glass

My body an empty deflated bag