Hearsay III.
BY MARY ANGELINO
I spy on my sick mother through the wall heater,
crouched at the rusted frame
until the grates line my forehead, until I grow
cauliflower knees from the living room carpet.
Parts of sentences glide through the metal.
Today, she tells my father that I took the five cocoons
(the ones she cradled in the peach jar for weeks)
and cut them each in half.
I want to tell her I hate the piano lessons,
how my hands crabwalk and stutter
across the black and white, how silences
between songs are cracks in a sidewalk,
traps for a wheel.
