Jonterri Gadson

II. The first time I had you killed I made you a hero of the Vietnam War. The third grade social studies textbook said young foreign boys hid grenades during corner games, seamstresses doubled as spies. Why wouldn't you have died on those streets, clutching my mother's photo with your thumb pressed cold against her belly, wishing you'd had a chance to propose, hoping for a girl? But that war ended before I was born. Next, I had a drunk driver end you. Said I visited him in prison to spit in his face. Forgave him for a speech during health class. In eighth grade, I made you die young of natural causes, so I could teach a grieving classmate the proper way to mourn.

What is skin, if not a taut swaddle loosening, body if not a warm swaddle cooling,blood if not thread in a swaddle made of body,horizons if not lines where sky swaddles Earth. See father. Stars, if not swaddled matter emitting light. See spirit. Wind, if it does not trace paths around bodies. See blood. Universe, if not outermost concentric circle. See mother. A kiss, if not mouths pressed into wet twists,taste if not flavor swaddling tongue,father if not the option to swaddle,spirit if not the smallest unit of the swaddled,mother if not hips swaddling womb. See skin. See body. See wind. See universe. See blood. after Nin Andrews

A mouth is a sideways woman, her curves and dips, the way she opens, how her hollow center can sing. Mother, your mouth is a fallen cello, your husband's hands— a casket. Full of me.

I don't love my son the way I thought my mother should love me so I handed him a shoe box to put the dead bird in and shut the door. It was a mistake, not to be sure he buried it, not to grab the children gathered at my back door by their shoulders to push them into a half-circle and a prayer. Should have made them take turns digging the hole, each one of their pudgy hands finger stiff red's box to lower it to the ground. It wasn't my place to teach other women's children about death, so my own son snuck the shoe box into his backpack, dead-eyed bird rolling like a plastic prize ball, told the principal this cold puff of field bird had been his pet. See him clutching a coffin the size of his feet, eyes wide over a pout, giving a man a reason good enough to hold him. after Louise Glück