Dousing my long hair in gasoline to kill lice, Mama, 

you make me into a delicate flame waiting to happen. 

I breathe once and my scalp, twice a blessing of your 

hands, opens into a humble suburban road. Ask me 

where I am going as I am closing my eyes and I say

here’s a street lamp, with its unlidded eye, here’s a hole 

in the dark – on the way to school, I am the only familiar 

planet. If my body was all ears, I could hear people eating 

their bread in dreams, I could catch the frogs spawning 

when I hop the ditch to escape a man with a match 

for a mouth striding behind my back – he is stroking it, 

stroking the match to light the match – between me 

and him a dead-end word, cunt – if only the freckles on my 

knuckles could guide me like stars, if only the road would fork

or I would cross but the traffic in your lap is crazy, Mama –

this must be how water felt when it turned into wine 

and this is how it rises above the ankles in the bath 

as you are rinsing my blonde hair, two fistfuls of gold 

on a blue towel, me – landing in my body like a ship looking 

for a new home, you – counting my luck, strand by strand, 

each unextraordinary ringlet a kind of knowing 

how the morning sky could have gone both ways.