She takes her kids to soccer, stands with them
in the rain. Church. Golden
delicious apples, dried apricots
stocked in the house of divorce she vacuums.
One night, just one night,
she lay with a stranger.
Her best friend’s body an alley full of wind.
So she told her mother she offered
herself for her friend’s child, a gift,
a blessing, small blue flowers on the deep
green branches, the resin so full, so rich
along the skin, the strands of hair.
Her empty friend holds her
hand through blood draws, blood pressure,
tips of the scale.
Her friend brings the extra iron, laughs
when she farts like a lion.
Her friend rubs her feet with beeswax.
When she tears a son into the world,
branches break in her eyes.
She hurls them from her side.
Wind scrapes the bricks of her body.
It howls past gutters of blood,
rattles dark sided panes.
For the lies we tell wittingly and unwittingly.
For the lies we drape with compassion.
For lives engorged by lies.
