you speak to a mountain
by becoming
it your body in her
language of minerals
a whisper a humming
bird’s fluttering wings
since I became
a mother nearly a decade

in a café I watch a boy
maybe five years old

hit his sister again and again
till his mom gives him a phone

on which to watch videos of boys
shooting …

Wanda has moved beyond collisions and is looking
   for vibrations. The lab’s cat makes too much static,

so they nudge him gently past the door.
   Wanda thinks about what cats are …

The midwife kneeled beside me
and when she stroked my thigh

on the toilet seat I noticed the image
of a baby tree, wavering in the deep-

rust stain of the clawfoot …