The moon flooded the world with grasshoppers clicking,
spitting, and waiting for me to sleep like
how oysters break open their own shells and
pour themselves out for the birds to sing to
or like how my mother lies awake crying herself to sleep
just like her mother did after my grandfather hit her in
the trailer park they both lived in, having to drive
to my mother’s sister’s just to bathe themselves like
two ducks in a pond, so ignorantly blissful that
they fall asleep in the bath and my aunt has to
pound on the door, but they’re just asleep or –
or maybe they’re high.
I know my mother used to keep watch because
her mother kept dozing off on the oxy that she popped
like diamonds in between her holy ankle and sock.
She couldn’t stay awake; she’d sit and
dig her gemmed fingers into an orange and wait.
That’s why my mother took off, she couldn’t
stand to look in the mirror
in the way the oysters see the moon
because she knew that
they cry for their mothers too –
They break themselves open
and watch the birds circle them
and sing –
sing like my grandmother sings in her car –
like how I peeled myself like the skin of an orange
and carried myself with me to chew
just as my mother would take me from the backseat of
that ‘95 white SUV
to my large twin bed I’ve dug my own grave into.
–
It’s late and
I sing with the grasshoppers
like my grandmother used to.
but
the birds will never get to me with my stubborn feet.