The first to go was the blue one. Blue like your eyes, like the paint swatches you'd have chosen for a baby’s bedroom. We found her on the rocks one morning, fins eaten by ammonia; burnt alive in her own atmosphere, is what you said. 
That first time, you still comforted me, though I didn't grieve the way you thought. Some fish, like human children, take years to breed. Rarer still to see in offspring: your blue eyes, blue...

When all this was over, did you think about it like I did? The careful conversation and your political jokes aside, the flash photos of your meal, the way you scraped your cutlery on porcelain, drank half a pitcher of my water, your voice still shrill from demanding -- the callous way you said my name, as if sister was somehow beneath you. Was I worth your thoughts, if not your time? 

Do you remember flagging the waiter, your hand...

The first to go was the blue one. Blue like your eyes, like the paint swatches you'd have chosen for a baby’s bedroom. We found her on the rocks one morning, fins eaten by ammonia, burnt alive in her own atmosphere, you said. 
That first time, you still comforted me, though I didn't grieve the way you thought. Your voice was a reminder: some fish, like human children, take years to breed. Rarer still in offspring: your blue eyes, her...

The first to go was the blue one with no name. Blue like your eyes, like the paint swatches you would choose for a baby’s bedroom. We found her lifeless on the rocks, fins eaten by ammonia in the water, burnt alive in her own atmosphere. 
That first time, you still comforted me, though I didn't grieve for the fish. Your voice was a reminder: you once mentioned her species took years to breed. Your blue eyes, her curling fins, both...

Some men build in bricks or marble. My father built in atoms. His scalpel ate them from the head of a matchstick. His art sat under microscopes, each work a city in flammable red. 
Once a tourist's hiccup set my father's gallery ablaze. 
He stopped his building after that. 

When you're standing on the front porch of a house in the middle of the woods, nothing ever feels the same. 
The windows are dark, the kind of dark that reflects the whites of your eyes when you look inside because even the faraway stars are brighter than whatever's inside. The air rests like a clammy jewel on your outstretched tongue, and you tug at it, work your mouth around it like hard candy. It is not so sweet as...

There used to be a point here, maybe,
Where God palmed the flat of a tombstone
And folded a flower into a lichen sunburst.
And nearby a dandelion found its seed,
Fought for sunlight where the shadow pointed to plots
Left open for sinners.
Ants might have woven and bobbed in the reeds, maybe,
Their false pincers full of innocence. Somewhere
A spider shivers at the disturbance,  
Thanks God’s stars that its prey is not the souls fleeing bodies ...

My mother was supposed to have
Stopped holding me when I was five.
Instead we lay on couches in the half-light
Of a sliding door open
For fireflies.
 
She sang some lullaby
I heard five years later
Played one-handed by my best friend
At a piano. Five fingers on the keys
Like claws when I realized
My mother was not a songwriter and
The song was not mine.
 
All along my mother was not slave to
Keyboards or...