I want to be one of those women

in Winco with only a few things in her

 

cart: organic yogurt, flavored water, a small blue

orchid for the kitchen window. A quiet

Grace Kelly type, or at least Julianne Moore. I’d like

 

my mom jeans to lie real flat so I’m more

mannequin than mom. But where can I hide

 

my daughter, trailing behind, a pre-pubescent caboose

asking, Can I have this? about a gummy food made to look

like a stackable burger, and I say Yes

 

to the gummy burger, perch it on the cereal

and toilet paper. She loves my legs—

 

draws them as trees in her notebook, her legs

tree trunks too, pine branches for our hair. She used to

 

grab the soft of my stomach or extra

under my arms when she sucked her thumb. The excess of me,

 

a comfort. A friend told me sex is the equivalent of

a seven mile run, so I skipped the gym,

 

fucked a whole lot until I realized

if this were true, the world would be filled

 

with cigarette-slim legs, and Jesus! we’d be happy. But then how

could I stand with all these things

 

I carry: the church telling me marriage is God’s

will, my father’s crippled hands that don’t look like

 

his hands, my son calling from the school auditorium to say,

Mom, we’re all so scared.

 

A YouTube yogi tells me there’s a thumbnail sized

room at the back of my heart. He says it’s where

 

my soul lives. I’d like to unzip

my skin, and bow-and-arrow myself

right in there, stretch out

 

on the couch. Are there flowers

or antlers on the mantel? Do I

 

have to split wood for the fire? And who

cleans the place up?