(twelve)
Your mother didn’t like noise
and there is cloth over your mouth.
You got lost in the forest, remember? But
no one heard your calls. For you didn’t call.
Instead, you bound your ribs with cloth,
to keep together your thin frame,

(sixteen)
I found a job at the post office, just for
some pocket money, to play you
a song at the jukebox tonight.
I wish you’d sing but there’s that cloth.
Your voice was higher than all the birds when
there were still birds
(five)

Say, you’ve lived here all your life.
A package came to town, I’ve carried it
from house to house. I’m panting
under its weight.
no one knows where it came from,
or who to give it to.
You’ve lived here all your life, tell me
where to go. And try not to mumble,
I can’t hear you.


this package feels like a small child,
except it never makes a sound, it never cries.
I have a gun for a roar,
a garden hose for fire,
I have a tissue box for tears.
but maybe it’s mother didn’t like noise?
It would talk to you, if you come talk to me.

(later)
Your daughter,
who liked to play hide and seek,
and knew her way among the trees,
tore away the rotting paper.
she said it was wet, and that
it tasted like her mother’s face,
when she sings lullabies.