My mother’s lamps have better light than mine:
with three settings, they sit on tables at the best angles.
Even though much of my time is spent reading,
I’ve never understood how to make things comfortable.
I wanted to live my life split open, awake,
walking through the slanted light and hard rains.
When as a child I almost drowned, I didn’t know it,
so I rose to the top then sank back down again,
curious about underwater things. Later, I cooked
brown rice and brewed huckleberry tea,
swam in the Delaware canals near New Hope,
and when the accident at Three Mile Island occurred,
I wrote a letter, Dear Sir or Madman:
Many days I wanted to end my life
but when my diagnosis came, I only
wanted to live.
At dawn today the frogs at the lily pond
clear their throats as if they have not
spoken in a thousand years.
In their voices I hear pain, knowing no one
listened to me when I spoke long ago
I see the day rise outside my window—
light on the edge of garden shears I hold.
