the education of an American mother (cw: violence, death)

She doesn’t talk about that day.

She doesn’t talk about the one
that comes three hundred and sixty five days after.
Line them up this way and that is how she lives:
in point-slope form with holes.

They let her see him, warning against it
because they forgot in their warning that he was still hers,
even after the bullet took away most of his face,
the second one revealing what his sternum looked like on the inside
with all its secret colors.

It was only when the cameras left
and the wind flung the tape about
that she knew he was gone.

She learned that beginnings are singular
but endings happen again and again,
each morning, unfairly.

She learned that loyalty
is layers of dust
on small pillowcases.

She learned what it means to be pinned to the earth,
bowing to its story,
flowering a plot whose lines became
the curve of a mound flattening over time.
The town will keep her forever.

She learned how sympathy is like a gun.

And how birthday cake is like a gun.

And how grandma’s house
on the edge of town is like a gun—

She learned how everything is like a gun
except for gun itself, which changed to become
the opposite of child—
an antonym for little boy.

She does not watch TV anymore. It does not
show the correct pictures. The ones she wants
have too much red.

Links:

1: one

2: two