Because Mama can’t stop dreaming of lost teeth.

Because my car swallows a stone.

Because she kept my baby teeth in a jar in the attic

and, if they’re held too tightly, I wonder what color the dust would be.

Because Mama has a picture of you on the nightstand

and doesn’t turn it down, frame to table-top.

Because she keeps the garden sheers where you left them.

Because water leaks from the faucet and collects in a frying pan.

Because we are fallen to your loss, I ask you, Father,

become some yellow disk, size of our land, small sky fire.

Become the weather Mama says her god returns

to us—warmth or wind or rain but not the plants we grow.

Because we are fallen to your loss, I ask you, Father,

did you send Mama to speak to a man who owns fields across from the market?

Did you have him say he planted sunflowers to make people happy?

So Mama held the word sun to her chest, sought you within it,

and told me she prayed for you to become some yellow disk?

Because now Mama stands with her coffee under the carport

brushes her hand against the bushes, wondering if your spirit

tended to the leaves after morning’s newborn light. 

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