Sara Moore Wagner
In the ceremony, I bathe in a pool
my father dug for me, bathe
in the white dress my mother wore
until it melts to soapy residue,
coats the yard like Christmas snow.
My skin pills gray stones, gravels
me. I am a driveway now.
It's my driveway to my house.
I am not the girl who threw curses
carved into broken branches
into the well until that well
knew all our names, even the secret ones:
winter, crane fly, loss.
I take ibuprofen now, at night to sleep
through the things I've done and undone,
the call of that old well, how it drew and then
receded into the ground supply, taking
with it every sacred want for violence,
every prayerful unraveling, like my voice
was a ribbon on a tree. Father. Father,
see me kneeling, half girl, half stone.
I am made in the image of things like kettle,
lamp, bookcase. My mother rinsing
clay from her face. I am made to hold something
and provide, to service with my body
and mind. I am clinging to the earth
as if it were a road and not just the way
in, always in, smooth as asphalt, almost
real. I am almost ready to unfold my hand and show
you what it is I've been holding, whose name.
Each night, how my mother rinsed
clay from her face.
My daughters.