enmeshed

I  am            s h a p   e  l e   ss,

 shadow puppet                  of my mother, my sisters

the portraiture.

At birth she plucked the scrawny little runt,
            
                                          ate me whole,
spat out a mime.  


     I become         a well,
                                          the vertebrae of a house,
                                          a cage hung from a rack of keys.

     
My mother is the bed sheet


                                          lodged in my throat,

reverse magic trick,  inexhaustible cloth
                     unraveling in my father's hand  
                                               turned vanishing act.
      

Dragged to the river Lethe by my hair,
     my palms are husked, sewn,
             tongue-scrubbed into oblivion.

  Later, mane in hand, I find
  that it is


the roots
 that remember.