My mother fell in love with the way you crackedinto an urchin. How you kept the blade                  along its purple skull                                  until it welcomed youanxious to be separated for the first and last time.Listen—from our window we can hear the Southern Pacific                  fume in the station. The turquoise room                                  in the pleasure dome is only for the long-fingeredand bored, so come with me and climb onto the roof.Sometimes, I remember best when I put my back to the warmcinderblock,                  other times I have to reach my arm across your shoulder                                  to find where you end. Darling, if you find me firston the desert road I strung together with pins of lightor in the aqueduct blooming with graffiti,                  this is where the sweet rot of leaves is coming from,                  where the colony of urchins swarm beneath the dock,                  where the twirling blades of the Black Hawk lift your hair.We have been careful not to admit that we have wolves in parts of our homewe no longer visit. We have been careful to ignore the infinite snarling                  of daytime, so come up for breath                  and forgive me nights you can’t sleep.Yes, I will keep my ear to the floorboards and listen closelyfor the sound of her parts assembling. Her lonesome days                  are spent at the oceanfront,                  the place where she drags out her dead.I’ve brought you a canasta of strawberries,the marble kind of gift from your childhood.                  These things                                  have been outside your reach until now.