There were these twins
I loved who called me
mom, a term of the times
meaning I was their least
bland teacher. The one
I knew less well agreed
in passing that corpses are
not people, especially not
the ones who had carried
them. Adults directed
her to say goodbye to
their mother in a hospital
bed and she thought,
that is not my mom. I do not
know who it is but it is
not my mama. I lived,
at the time, on a small
street meaning apple—
its diminutive. For years
after the three of us had left
that school, I wrote them
when I wrote my own mother,
until one year messages
returned to sender explaining
there are namers and name
receivers, and I have only
birthed clots, one at a time.
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