I say we live in ocean | you say in sky

I say my mother’s people were whales hunted for their teeth

you say your father’s fathers were doves | landing in a line in the sugared fields

this much is true | my mother was a girl

mauled by dogs in a village near the sea | & after | in the blue heat

twisting loose the copper faucets | filling the house to the roof

your father was a boy who walked through stars

when he should have been walking home

a boy torn apart by wolves in winter | in the center of a busy street

the curse is | without lungs & without gills | where can she breathe

your father would stand so still at altars

so the angel’s wings became his wings

the curse is | the angel’s wings became his wings

all those years | I say | all those fish in my mother’s rooms

—all those furious wings

all those men into gods—