Dear body of my body.Dear fluid-breathing fauna.Dear drowned isle in a mine               -field of organs & feces.I think of you often.There was a moment in 2007, late fall, while your father worked              overseas, that you moved, dividing yourselffrom me, divorcingmy ribs, forcing my stomach upunder my full breasts.Was it that I always wanted to be haunted?Wanting not to be left is different.I had a son before you & another son              after. But the sequel is only a reminderof what came frst. Do you remember?The kale & broccoli & hard-boiled eggs.The punk rock anthems & lunges & jump squats.They told me how healthy we were.Your skinny limbs, the thumb in your moutharticulated in the ultrasound. The eerie grey              glow of the future I was feeding.We were in Stockholm.We were in Alberta.We were in Clearwater, where the gullsflit about the beaches & the ghost-sky hangs             the sea.Then, in Copenhagen, I closed my eyes, your facepressed to my pelvis, & wokehomeless, child-less, less & less             a miracle.The ugly parts of me might’ve been the ugly parts of you, might’ve beeninescapable. Like war & gunfire. As people,we can’t seem to figure out how to livein the same spaces without killing someone              to make more room.My grandmother used to say: there is a price for livinga long life that you don’t know yet, girl.Dear amber light, dear angel-haunt, dearsiren—,there are days I must motherdespite the rain that chasescockroaches inside the house. Despitethe breaths your father counts              instead of counting heads.I am writing to say that human is a fallible construct: I am sometimesterrible, sometimes fiery, sometimes feral.I am sometimes unable to celebrate the dayssomething has tried to kill meand has failed.                                  Look at your brothers: their footfalls, tinybones. Their kindness as they tuck their hands in every crack,as they touch us back to brave.Here: water haunts the fields.The dandelions, greyed & fraying.Leaving is always delicate.Tell me you would’ve given anything to stay.Tell me, again, anyway.