I awake in the cold orbit of what my body has made
& I’m a child again, sleepless beneath
a fever that clings to me like air—& you’re lifting
me out of bed & into the car & I’m lucid
with the stories you’re telling me, or just
dreaming my memories—a car seat sliding
around the backseat of the Pinto you call
Old Girl—my arm busting through a coat sleeve
and coming loose as you pull it through—
feeling the air you make in your rush to where
I’ve fallen on the ice rink & the blade
of your skate as it cleaves my finger. You’ve never
told me about the time you left. Why
you came back. I know love is a kind
of violence, a threatening grammar—how
a mother must love in spite of her body.