God and Mother

went the same way.

* * *

What's a person to us
but a contortion
of pressure ridges
palpable
long after she is gone?

* * *

A thin old man in blue jeans,
back arched, grimaces
at the freezer compartment.

* * *

Lying in the tub,
I'm telling them—

the missing persons—

that a discrepancy
is a pea

and I am a Princess.

RAE ARMANTROUT
"Missing Persons"
2008