Now I Know Why the Crucifix Is Staring at Me

I appear drenched, my hair hanging like a veil.
My mother doesn’t know if she should look at me.

I keep breaking glass, not moving forward,
and losing sleep among too many open windows.

I see her sorting the pieces of blanket and disaster—
her hands touch so gently she could be folding the moon in half.

On the bed, pillows are fringed and stitched in floral,
porcelain dolls lined up to remind me of my girlhood.

I watch my breath in the air like small clouds,
a field of cows that hum beside me.

The night before a hole in the wall, my body
undone as skin peeled from an orange,

my knees on the kitchen floor, screams
swirling in the air like dust in a beam of sunlight.