—after Mary Szybist—
 
 
Amy, mother mine, meaning
“dearly beloved.” We are gathered
 
here today, in this ghost-iron lost-city,
 
to forget all about you. I dig
in and out of you each day
 
like a mine shaft: cut-down
 
and dangerous. I keep hoping
for the quick breath of discovery,
 
for the coal dust of my heart to settle
 
and leave me sooted, ready
for jewels. I am slick with the afterbirth
 
of your memory. But I clean myself, ablute
 
palatially, prairie-pray—I lay
me down to sleep, I am a child
 
for you again. Where did I go wrong?
 
Every sin of me, Amy, I claim. Each
and every gayness. I am saying: help me
 
understand why sincerity’s a grave-
 
yard of dead language. I forget
you. I forget. I close the shaft, let it
 
fall in on itself like a tarred and dying lung—
 
stop thinking of you, how quiet
I am behind you in the portrait
 
where we look like a family—like now,
 
and at the hour: the quiet, canary-
hour of our death. Was it there,
 
Amy? Ah, me? Amen?