When I _____

When I ______, she said,

you'll be free, but remember 

Pastor Liu owes me five thousand dollars, here is 

the note she wrote 

Look, that's her signature. 

Don't ______, mom. 

She didn't reply. 

 

My debit card is with your father, he can have

the four thousand dollars

in there, for coming to visit me, his

divorced wife with cancer. 

Don't 

______, mom. She 

just smiled. 

 

Look, you're a woman, she said,

Be kind and gentle, be soft like

Water 

Never divorce, she said. Work on 

your marriage and tolerate him. 

Don't ______ 

______,

Mom. 

 

When she ______, I called

Her friends, they all cried

Including Pastor Liu, who was no longer a

Pastor 

she told me 

Your mother was a good person, if she knew how 

Broke I am, she wouldn't 

Want her money back 

 

Then I talked to my father

Yes, I have her debit card, but

There is only fifty dollars

iIn there, do you want it? 

 

I betrayed her too, my mother 

I divorced him, I was not soft like

Water. 

She doesn't live here anymore

Graves are a nuisance to upkeep, she said, 

Burn me and chuck my ashes in the sea, you'll be free

So will I, I'll be the sea. 

How lonely, I thought 

How lonely it'd be to become the sea, and to have a mother 

Who became the sea. 

 

I cremated her and 

sent the ashes to the Swiss. 

How funny, I thought, her death plans were also 

with the Swiss, but 

she did not need assistance with 

Her suicide. 

 

When they knock I don't speak of 

her death, instead I say:

She doesn't live here anymore. 

She wanted to become the sea, but I paid the Swiss to pressurize her ashes

Into a diamond

Neither of us is free, how lonely

death is

How do I speak of it 

November 16th

On the Sixteenth of November my child
presses his face against my
wet raincoat
as a bus hushes to a stop.
A bus that isn't for us.

We stand in the thick foliage of rain
and breathe in the damp mist.
The streets are bruised with reflections of lights that
do not warm.

My child with his face pressed against my wet raincoat
says he loves me.
The words pitter then patter
and I stop shivering.

November 20th

I tuck the sheets under the mattress of my child's white crib

and think of how I'm doing it inadequately.

What a sloth, my mother would say,

when will you ever learn how to make a bed

properly?

 

How come three years isn't enough for me to stop grieving.