I can not find the letter mother left me four days
before her death. I read it once and then placed

it in a cardboard box like you might a dull
knife or a ******* tin. The letter is

a part me, like Van Gogh’s severed
ear was to him. I want the letter

like love or sight; the way bone
                               needs marrow.

She runs from the garden with a tomato worm in her palm
leaving behind a doll, chocolate milk, and banana.

Behind her and thousands of feet above, a green-black
anvil cloud muscles in  from the southwest, close to home;

far from her mind.

My classmate Martha walked our school’s
halls for thirteen years, few students

talked to her because she drooled,
walked like a puppet, and had

greasy hair; there are  poems
I can not finish.

She arched, and peeled
a red plum into my
mouth, including
the ragged pit;

though she had the charm
of a pumice stone, I did
not spit or complain.