What My Mother Meant to Say That Night

Because men do what they want to
do, & the night just keeps skimming
quarters from the till when it thinks
no one is looking. No one is looking
when the hinged thing in my chest
swings wide & full, then empty of
itself, creaks closed forever. Of late,
alone like that, in a middle distance
between my body & another’s tally
of my body, maps redrawn & walls
where a wide, lit, temporary pasture
used to be, the stars are trembling
from the weight of dreams. If home
is the one place we cannot return to
& now is the only home we’ll ever
know, she tells me, how to explain
your tiny hand in mine — home, now
— kneading bread for your father
asleep upstairs in a half-empty bed I
half-pretend to share, how before he
wakes the waking doesn’t matter, &
after I’m gone, how hungry you will
both be.