The Many False Equivalencies
Again I spend the dream yelling at her
She’s never doing what she should
I know what my father-in-law would say
You’re mad at her for dying
That’s true Still Still I don’t want
To spend my dreams yelling She’s
By the door, ready, purse on her shoulder
Getting out of bed I can touch that purse
With my toes
I spend the morning wanting to be gentle
With everyone Everything But the dream
Has me on edge too I go back and forth
One second running my nails lightly
Down my lover’s back The next detailing
When I expect him to change a trash bag
This morning his ex wrote him She
Wants him back He Doesn’t understand
I almost expect him to say The nerve
But He is not my mother He is young
We have sex soon after the email
I know the chances were so slim
That we met So slim we surely haven’t met
In many other universes
And I feel terrible for me there
Who does not feel as loved as this
I don’t wonder if my mother is alive
In another universe I don’t compare one
Happiness to another I know my mother
Is dead in every universe She was ripped
Away at once The universes would
Find it unbearable To lose her In any
consecutive consecutive consecutive way
Her obstinate face at the door Her knowing
She’s done nothing to deserve
This tone of voice from me
This Wild Year I Shape Wildly
When I write the men, I type Fuccck yes
instead of stretching out the ks
because even in my sexts I’m a Jew.
When I masturbate, even after
multiple orgasms, I keep going,
crying, laughing. Pleading, Break me.
Sometimes all I focus on are actions
that bring me pride in the person
I can be in times of grief.
My mother wouldn’t like who
I’ve become. But she would like
the stories of this new me.
I hear her laugh. I hear her laugh
in my laugh. I introduce her
to my lover through myself.
Sometimes when I masturbate
I videotape myself to see if
I’m as sexy as I feel despite my body.
To spite my body I withhold food.
Only in the mornings. I am making
up for every Yom Kippur.
I want to feel my body ache for
—not my lover.
I want to be forgiven but not to atone.
I want to be written in the Book of Life
where life is this next phase where
I remake myself in my image
motherless for the world
I’m only now able to greet
as open and alone as this.
