I Eat Poetry

Years ago, alone in her room, my mother cut
	a hole in the air

& vanished into it.  The report hung &
	deafened, followed closely by an over-

whelming silence, a ringing
	in the ears.  Today I take a piece of chalk

& sketch a door in a wall.  By the rules
	of cartoon physics only I

can open this door.  I want her
	to come with me, like in a dream of being dead,

the mansion filled with cots,
	one for everyone I’ve ever known.  This desire

can be a cage, a dream that spills
	into waking, until I wander this city

as a rose-strewn funeral.  Once
	upon a time, let’s say, my mother stepped

inside herself & no one
	could follow.  More than once

I traded on this, until it transmuted into a story,
	the transubstantiation of desire,

I’d recite it as if I’d never told anyone,
	& it felt that way,

because I’d try not to cry yet always
	would, & the listener

would always hold me.  Upstairs the water
	channels off you, back

into the earth, or to the river, through pipes
	hidden deep in these walls. I told you the story

of first learning to write my own name, chalk
	scrawl across our garage door,

so that when my mother pulled it down I’d
	appear, like a movie.

I don’t know if you can read this now, you
without a body, without a hand on the wheel…

		For years physicists were searching outerspace
	for some ether electromagnetic waves

could travel through.

				It was Einstein who said,

	you can’t find it because it isn’t there…

			Your hair would be gray now.

			You led me upstairs to my great-grandmother’s bed
		her hair floating white above her skull
						as if it had already left her.

			I never knew her not to be blind.

She reached out to read my face
	your hands firm on my back.

		you can’t find it because it isn’t there

You without a body without a compass without oars
your hands are useless in this world,
				resting on my shoulders

trying to steer.