I taught myself to fall. My knees were flags

for playground wars, my tomboy scabs a pledge.

Mom kept a ruler near the sink. Her nags

were psalms. Her switch, a sacrament. The hedge

hid more than bees: it hid my boyish blush,

my wish for stubble, swagger, bloody games.

And Reagan’s sun was just a groping hush

that touched the weeds and not our family names.

I laid on ceilings. Gravity was fake.

They called me freak, I grinned like birthday cake.

You taught me salt was holy. You were right.

It seasons every cut I can’t rewrite.

Each syllable you never let me say

still grows in me, and shaves itself each day.

They say the dogs can smell it. Cancer, I mean.

They sniff the rot like prophets, wag and bark

at something deep. My dreams grow gasoline.

They burn like your first cough: brief, then dark.

The broad beans brown. The zinnias will not bloom.

The earth looks up, confused at what you grew.

The sun rehearses nothing but your doom.

The garden lies, like you, but truer too.

Your breath came back in scripts of air too old

to read. I watched your gums go soft and cold.

You called me “girl” and laughed like blood was wine.

I wished the nurses dead. You said, “You’re fine.”

But you were not. You taught me with your eyes

that all we praise is what we recognize.

The hospice kept you warm in name alone.

You wouldn’t eat. The ceiling peeled its skin.

I held your hand, a taxidermied bone,

still soft from when the IV slipped back in.

You blinked once for a yes. The morphine sang.

I sang with it. A lullaby of salt.

A gasp. Then still. Then breath began to hang

like frost. Then not. I kept it. It’s my fault.

You said: “Don’t be a victim. Tell the truth.”

I said: “Okay.” But lied to keep your tooth.

I wore your housecoat while you died. It smelled

like Vicks and clove. I sobbed. My organs swelled.

The season passed. It had your shape and scent.

I write these lines as if they pay your rent.

You left no will. No scarf. No pearls. Just air.

And air is just a room the dead don’t pay.

I kept your spice rack. Basil. Fennel. Prayer.

And questions folded under yesterday.

You left me skin—mine. Yours. Our stitched duet.

The mustached woman I became at twelve

has since grown fond of mirrors. No regret.

I beard the world alone, alone, and delve

through salted truths, their myths, their stony thread.

You taught me: even lilies fail when dead.

I wear your voice like thunder in the rain.

It fits me like a bruise. It speaks of pain

and pleasure in a single breath. I choose

to write, because it’s how I never lose.