Tell My Parents I'm Home (based on Tara Mae Mulroy's, “Persephone Writes to Her Mother”)

Mother, she is light.

She bounces off tin-foil lakes, soothing tides.

She warms the back of my eyes every dawn.

She is a sunspot amongst freckles and stars.

She lets me look on beauty.

She lets me tell her I love her.

At daybreak, I lie broken with her.

I rub the sleep from her eyes.

Remind her this is okay.

This is fine.

I weave her hair into flashlights.

She mumbles in her dreams: ice-cream, water, sunset

the things she forgets.

She wakes and states, “Your body is my ocean.”

I am muddy puddles.

I am the tides she rose with her voice.

Sand rasps through my veins.

When she kisses me, she tastes sea-salt.

The day burns away,

The shift of the waves calms and dwells.

Mother, we are well.

 

Father, he is light.

He carries every note the buildings hum.

He wishes on water vapor and oxygen.

He floats as far as I fall.

He lets me see that he fears.

He lets me tell him I cannot fly.

At the peak, I worry my fingers through his hair.

I count the hundreds of miles he floats above,

He reminds me this is okay.

He is safe.

I still set the tips of his toes unto the cliffside.

He mumbles while he dreams: crane, airplane, skyscraper.

The things he needs.

He focuses, “Your body is my great plain.”

I am barren fields.

I am the dirt he shifts with his breathing.

Winds slip through my pores.

When he kisses me, he tastes soil.

The night blows nearer,

The groans of a twister shakes and swells,

Father, we are well.  

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