Of multitudes

I once hid in the closet
to be with my being

especially to be 
unneeded –

how the sun erases all
the little stars, and

I was contained there, 
or was it with pressure
 
how I filled with unsafe
words in the first life –

would the stones not 
have shaken when I 
began to yell - would 

mom still have died
if she had stayed with me

and I had stayed with her
when she tried to come back
and said she was sorry,

too insincerely – would she
have said I wasn't wrong
to save myself if we 

had one more chance
and do I even need it;

anyway, she told me once,
children ruin a person's life

only a handful of years 
after she left 

and nonetheless I thought
too often I was weak,

made like taffy, of push 
and pull, sweet 

and ephemeral, once 
believing need must
mostly go unmet,

same her sorrow grew;
the cruelty she could
never look at too

closely without panic,

so instead, I tried to wear
my father's blue sweater 

when I turned thirteen,
backside-front like
like an armor, 

hands hidden in the
too long sleeves

where nobody could
suddenly grasp me, and

she thought I was just
a tomboy, she would say,
when I began to do this

but really I had no idea
how to speak except
in these ways – a little

warm, but smooth 
as a mirror

in every frightening
moment that followed –

having like a tree
in a drought drops 
the leaves; I pushed

into my own roots 
beyond any reach
every joy and win,

same all the little stars
grow bright behind the sun

when the sun does one day, dim.