the days go down easy if you're willing to swallow

she said: "mama, that cross

don't mean nothing

to me. I like the way it dangles

from the rearview mirror,

catching the sun

in it's shining eye from time to time

you gave it to me empty

the way someone else's secrets

seem like television, and

/////you don't ever

////put them inside you

and you showed me how our house

filled with light from

the inside like

a human aquarium
and how our family breathes
the same furniture and eats
the same thoughts every
supper
while I go still as a starfish
so you can't tell I'm living because
///////I don't like
//////to be watched

oh mother mother mother
you wear these wounds like jewelry
like wedding rings, oh mother
won't you please
take them off now?
you wear it, but I've
lived it
I knew it and know it like old
skin and livers and stale air,
I used scissors to cut out the parts
I don't need anymore, so mother
please listen, there's something
//////to be said for
/////letting go

so I'm driving and driving and mama,
I will keep on driving and still shouldn't you?
with this cross I don't bear but
let it hang empty
to fill up with daylight
like houses I have never known
and when the night drops upon us,
I don't worry, see
I've stored me some lightness
and that's when we'll see
/////what on Earth
////we can catch."