This young, you don’t think of your mother.
You slam doors on their hearts.
They leave dinner cold but the lights still on.

Every pair of shoe you wear is suicide. A monument
to the end of the world. Not much to it
when it’s everywhere, the last time

your mother cried. You dream high,
and an auntie’s hair grows back.
The cowboy responsible gets his ass

clipped in Santa Fe. And every father
comes home, though the bad ones
get their shit rocked. In this language,

lost girls are messengers from God.
We went to church, and it’s the parking lot

they found last summer’s body. Where we smoked
weed and boys watched from their cars. Our pleas

were answered, but it was just a line
of women coming home. An ocean

of arms waiting there to catch them.