Prodigal Daughter
Every day is yesterday
& like the loneliness
of water, I have always
existed. My body brackets
a quiver in a world that doesn’t
love us. Despite the tyrants,
the “I” is forever
insatiable. Alone in Spain once,
I ran out of money &
for days ate nothing
but eggs. The bad life,
my mother would say. & yet
I was resplendent, found a music
that confronted the self
with the self. I have always
found ways to violate
my own body—cocaine until
the heart thickened. Wasteful,
prodigal, a slut to my whims,
& my grandmother
so poor she couldn’t feed
her chickens. Today & yesterday
& tomorrow & the day after,
the hours viscous, the hours
vicious. This is what it’s come to.
A Mexican cackles next door—
& what’s more stunning? The lesson
is beauty replicates itself.
& you, my speck, a replication
of the beloved. 100 brain cells
per minute. Forgive me,
I don’t know the science of it, only
the smell of meat that sends me
gagging to the toilet. How can I
do this? How can I ask you
to be kind in a world that isn’t?
