I don’t

instead, I move.

as I’ve meant to

I don’t have enough hands to reassemble

what’s so long broken

Consider that one

whose mother used or uses

at first prescribed

the color

of the pills doesn’t matter

You might think:

a child is changed by the sight of mother’s bruising

Correct!

I let that change be the fracture

I cannot fix

We’ll see problems that are the end

This is the power of choice

the choice of power

to find the rationale that exfoliates

dries my nakedness

clothes me unwrinkled

the father

less present, thank God

because he was less than

Me? I would hire tutors, would pay for camp and music lessons

because I know how

to get a thing done

the father is also an outcome

—a long story— not all his fault

always perhaps inevitable

in a way, very sad,

I know

that you’re a good person because you feel something

too, but now you have a meeting

so don’t