SELKET
in the cancer
she looks
mummified/
egg-shell eyes
lidded
as she nods off in self-medication/
jaw & teeth protruding
w/ the retainer beneath/
now aware
she recognizes me
& she asks to hear the question again
which she answers
as if
she had been there all along/
she smells like my mother/
she still carries herself w/ class/
even in death she is aristocracy/
like the goddes Selket
whose golden figure
was in the tomb of Tutankhamen/
she
is
human
so we will place her on the pyre/
it's her/
but I am no longer me/
& w/ her gone
I'm not sure who
I'll be/
. . .
ALL OF US
all of us grow up
in misery & splendor/
every day is sunlit and horrible/
our names are mocked
& the beautiful girl doesn't like us
& someone wants to fight us
& we don't want to fight/
& our clothes
are the clothes
we wore yesterday/
& we are spanked
& ignored
& don't have the toys we want
& eat liver
or beans
when they make us
& are quiet when they scream, "shut up"
& then angry
& then plan to make them sorry/
be we awaken
to fresh tortillas w/ butter sliding between them/
or bacon & Bisquick pancakes
& we throw our jackets up on windy days
to see them carried off
down the street
or make up songs on the way home
or read a whole sentence
w/out
stumbling over a word
or are able to memorize a poem
or the 9 times table
or make the biggest splash in the pool
on one particular day/
all of us
are terrible
& wonderful
always/
