I know you tried to rescue me
( and succeeded for a time),
Your favorite foodcoloranimal
I never learned,
From some deep place comes
a memory of fishing – that & your soft voice
Southern & your high cheekbones, Cherokee
& the fact that you once loved
my mother enough to knit me together.

Now you’re gone there’s no source
of information with which to burden my heart.
Just she who cannot speak
She’s so far away from reality I could
in any case never interpret
her truth from your lies.

Of course you loved me.
Of course.