sandstone molt
I've been excavating
the rib cage of a stranger
inch by inch, I
slip into her alien skin
make a home on the bones of a cage.
weaving an elastic, itching layer
will it keep me warm in the winter?
As warm as
your letter on my bedside table
postcards from my mother's youth
black bears over greylock
and wondering
if she settled into wedlock.
Do I have to
turn my back on blood?
her father asked her home
mine would follow my manifest.
Only two days
Two days of blue air
swallowed up in tiny lungs,
when she gave me to the sunlight
one Adirondack afternoon.
My mother, who
led me into pines,
dipped my toes in dew-licked grass,
gave me to the Atlantic and
returned me to the Wapack.
2018.