NewPoetry

Maggie Burton

.

I populate her interstitially
constellate her memory cells

like Andromeda cleaving off
her dark parts until there’s nothing left

but stars. I watch her inhale what’s left of me
but like virions bursting I spark

a movement within. I render
her invincible. She voids her agoraphobic garden

cloaked in pruned hydrangeas she walks
through town, whole and speaking.

I seep in through holes of pores
and wait for the flint to strike the wheel.

Not now, my mother is finally the shape of me
and I’m not ready to die.

.