my mother’s mother was born one hundred years ago today

i am teasing my body along one thin line ° the drive between a city of nestling ° and one of conscious itch ° i hope my perambulator ° will pass its inspection ° sometimes a person ° is holding a thing that turns out to be a baby ° sometimes a mother is pregnant for ten months ° not nine and that’s normal, just the way it is ° on days like these my body carries ° a laptop atop a laptop atop a lap ° i don’t prefer to feel ° a bit lost this way ° in the depths of a place called a garden ° i am caroling for nothing ° a return of my saturn ° the advice i provided my mother ° was to intern ° her mother’s ashes ° in the veteran’s cemetery ° it’ll be there forever i said ° and something can always occur to an urn ° what did i mean by that rolling silence ° the photo she held up to graph myself onto ° looked so much like her it aches ° no no i look like that twelve year old girl ° a great great great something ° those moonfisted eyes that beakish pout ° i don’t recognize my own voice ° my mother tells me ° maybe i was high ° in those letters she is twelve and in this one thirty ° but the handwriting barely tilts ° i recognize her voice in mine sometimes ° a mother atop a mother atop a moth ° we flutter this way or that instead ° the baby in the perambulator twitching ° i have sipped the last of the coffee ° i’m so sorry to call again ° but when you didn’t answer ° i forgot my voice was meant to ° i mean i lost the sound ° of the letter ° i love you mom so much ° more than i can say ° you are just the best ° she wrote ° a sign off care to take ° well ° here you go then ° i’m passing the letters ° right back to you