Soon enough, it got hard for me
to ignore the pebbles of broken
glass buried in the seats
of her attempted-suicide car, or
the night you cut open your legs
only to find them filled
to the brim with nothing
but cold blood and fresh ice.
I could smile but I was stuck in your war-
time car crash, fighting to breathe
over the exhaust, the sky dark and thick
with the unspoken, and she, your mother,
was confined to forced peace,
rounded corners, no butter knives
or shoelaces, hidden scars, white light and white, white walls.