The two halves of this city pull at the stitches.
River unwound, a wooden spool turning to loosen
its coarse gray thread.
 
It was me who
 
When you were born I
 
I was the mother joining scraps for a sleeve.
 
Your mottled chest rose and fell as I unpinned
my hands from your gown. The breathing—still
wet, still sudden—I could see it aspire:
oil skin stretched across new whale bone.
 
You were my sea-tossed lamp.
 
I was the boat, the
kerosene, spilt into a dark current
where cloth would only pull you below
as someone you once knew, a body
around your body, made for
the shifting sea.