Mother combs my hair
with her fingers as if blood is pouring
out the back of my head,
my dying smells like sea–
star petals on the windowsill.
She combs my hair
without pulling,
without sculpting to the sound
of her wailing dreams, without
uprooting my anxieties.
The sickness makes its way in
through patterns I’ve etched
into my forehead,
If she emptied her hands
of this weight, my face
would fall from the ground,
scattering below her feet again.
Mother holds my head to hold
my wakefulness steady
until the medicine dissolves
into my bloodstream, until I have learned
how to use my own body,
stop these hands from digging
nails into each morning
I want to touch.
My head is the only part
of me I haven’t spoon-fed
to my illness,
Mother holds my hair
as if I’ll find a way
to take everything back.
