Likeness

           Talking feels canceled when I stand alone

in the forest. Mother, your thinness is a letter

to my worry. I watch you work in the garden.

I confuse solitude with loneliness.

My hair is also grey kisses at sundown.

A doe strafes the ridgeline, until lost

in the thicket, only snapping brush.





           God undressed in an arbor of madness;

I am his mannequin’s shadow.

My eyes empty the last clip of daylight

into the forest, and quietly

the rain on leaves leaves leaves clean.





           A son’s no thing but a map to likeness.

You have tried to make me yours—

I think of the bones you broke to bring me here.

I promise, I am trying to love the world.

Say it is not impossible. Place

your flowers on the sill inside me.