My heart is nested
in my mother’s.
She is sheltered in
a Cardinal, a goddess red
winged ghost of
knowing.
She shows up
only to remind me
of the layers
I am born into
and never
rid myself of.

I am a shelter to my own
children like leaves
that cup within
each other
on a wet tree shaken
by a storm,
the ground not
yet cooled by a quick
breasted breeze.
I did not bloom in error
from the shell
of the shell of the shell
of my mother’s
narrow equation.

There is an order to these operations.
An order to these small seeds
in the parenthetical corners of my womb
that contain multitudes of galaxies,
a calculated layering of leafs, petals,
bloom of wings.

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