Ghost I lay in wait, a small wolf of grief, watch over her, this broken girl who should have been my mother. In the room next door; women sing out loud, wistful and sweet. Mama’s low moans slip swirl about her body, a shroud of mourning she pulls down each time she wakes without me in her body. Watch her hands now -first the belly, the bed rail, the sweat drenched sheets, she reaches back to press the thin walls, as if to drag her life from ambulance, anesthetic, scalpel. As if to reel in this sharp terror of the brakes screaming, the brutal punch of grill to belly. She claws for me, her nails snap and sliver. These are the smallest of her fractures. Watch how she collapses into sleep. Each small coma a blessing. I become hairless, I lose my father’s chin. I give up

his long absent eyes. I'll be unrecognizable

to her and those men who've practiced

to cradle my round head across their roped arms,

cautious, these grief struck uncles who'd mapped 

the arc of my first long catch, 

first girl, my first stolen bottle of beer.