For My Mother, on a Day Like Today

You once said

you’d run with us under your arms—

my sister in one, me flailing in the other—

like we were firewood

and you the whole burning house.

You once said

you celebrated thirty a long time ago

and laughed like someone

who knew too well what came after.

But you are still the first door I knock on

when the sky cracks,

when the day folds into itself

like a badly drawn breath.

You are still the only mirror

I trust not to lie.

Today, I bring you no grand gift—

just this stitched-up thing,

this poem with one knee scraped,

the other still learning how to bow.

You, who strung a laundry line for my dreams,

still let them air, even when they sag.

You, who danced the new year

with knees that had long given notice—

you are the rhythm I return to

when I forget how to move.

And maybe this is all I know of grace:

to see you light a cigarette

with the same hand that fed me.

To see you fall silent,

but never give up your voice.

To know that when you say

“I’ll see you in the fall,”

you always mean

“Come home.”

Invocation for My Father, the Doctor of the War

You were broken long before you died,
But you loved us still.

Loved children, animals, the fragile beating things,
Even when your own heart cracked louder than your voice.

I didn’t call you hero then,
I didn’t know how.

You wanted me to be a doctor,
I became something else. But I still heal, I still carry your flame.

I felt your dying once.

It curled into my gut like a knot,

And then I was born again—

Through you, through her, through me.

You never looked like a saint, but you bled like one.

And now, in this cruel world you’re lucky not to see,

I miss your righteous anger,

Your soft hands,
Your absence that still aches like an unspoken prayer.

If you’re listening:

This is me saying it, at last.

I see you. I forgive you. I thank you.

And I miss you, my hero.