My mother asked one night
after she'd had a couple
"wuddaya wanna be" 'cause
she had reason to worry. I did
nothing except read and eat
granulated sugar sprinkled over
silky butter hidden in folded
Wonder Bread, the sugar unleashing
a sweet spit flood as I chewed.
An artist, I said,
No, she said, they never
have enough money so
pick something else
and I looked at me
and saw it was hopeless.
I had sweet-made cavities
and a butter-fat roll at my waist
fashioned as a dough plug
to fill the hole my father
had battered in my heart.
I knew I'd need a lifetime
to learn when to say when.
"Be careful" she told me,
her eyes reddened with tears,
"what you wish for cause
if you want too much you'll
have to live with regret,
dreams being deadly
in both construct and destruct,
if you want nothing,
you'll never know disappointment."
The roshi of lack, she watered
my garden with her lament.
Original sin turned out not
original at all but simply
the container my father's fists
and my mother's fears
fashioned for me which
I struggled, using every tool
that came to hand, to burst,
to leave, like the autumn cycadas,
a husk hanging on the bark,
or, as does the snake, discarded skin,
opalescent evidence of transcendence.
Escape proving impossible,
I've had to embrace what couldn't
be fled but now watch with glee
as that original wish
comes true being written
all over my face.
