(for K.)

1. The Winter

“look at the moon,” she said, my mother:
“it can hold your weight.
yes, yours– even with
all your guilt and wandering,
and all of your demands.”

she said this driving, gesturing
over oaks and poplars
into grey, black sky
looking for a place to spend the night.

“you were a careful kid,” she said,
“fat-cheeked and five years old,
sitting on the co-op blacktop with your
feet bare,
too scared to play.”

(this is back when I still thought
her whims looked like selflessness,
not survival)

“there are two things you should remember,”
she said, then, rolling
down the windows to feel the wind:

“the moon will always take care of you.”

and

“one day, you will have a home.”

I held my heart steady,
guarding against Want.

in the car window my face reflected dense
and blurry–
not the kind of face someone could love.
but she kept driving.

2. The Fall

You think you’ve found a home. You
write letters,
collect tattoos and talismans.

You are learning how to cultivate:
Your thirst, your body, the distance between
your unrecognized parts, the planes
and shadows of your face.

You study the watery light coming through
her windowpane and think you could stay
here for a while,
but you’ve been wrong before.

You think you might have love too weak
to hold all the parts of her that need
cradling,
keeping together.

3. The Beginning

the mountain has been changing.
every day a different colour; old leaves.
these new colours are for you: primary
reds and yellows,
leaves the colour of limes and pennies.

the colours are brightest in october,
which is when they learn that it’s okay to
let go (into the unexpected).

this is not fear, but not-knowing,
and no safety–

but always, still,

finding shelter.