part of loving this mother is alleging 

birthdays are usually private parties  

where my mother empties her whole heart  

one of the few occasions she cries 

prays that her entire life’s work remain unsullied 

what this work is or draws from, i’m still not sure   

but i think of ruins constantly 

scaffolding as unaided as her spite 

anger she wears like a shawl  

one time, almost cutting off my stream  

of speech when she aimed a kitchen knife at me 

sometimes, i wonder how life would have been  

if she had somehow perfected her aim, her anger  

taken control of this rain that poured heavily on her  

rain that bent her small frame into enduring 

when instead she became a mother who settled for the itch of things   

grew domestic with objects to be pickled and forgotten 

on this night of many nights, she talks about her childhood 

a story she swears began only after the war 

one where home remains a simmering stew, and aging 

implies bifurcation, a bidirectional look at the same things   

part of loving this mother is alleging  

that everyone’s mother ages backwards 

and friends are the animals howling  

laughing at my favourite jokes