Born
Where I was born,
out of the opening wings of my
mother’s legs and into the hands
of someone I would never see again,
was a place I would not go back to,
and later, a hundred times, a thousand,
I was in my mother’s arms, like
wings that folded over me,
but mammal-warm. Because there are
places that disappear, the ones that
I go back to stand out in relief,
but what says mother, mother,
also says feather and wing and fly,
fly off and away.