After a daughter
expires in the cold, she is more field

than body, more
root than bone. She lives

in the throat of the guilty–
she waits for morning

to crack itself open
before she starts to speak.

Dawn never comes, buds tired
& unopened. She is this kind

of daughter, soft in her
unknowingness. A mother

cannot understand–why
must beauty die every day,

and why can’t God make
what is rotten smell in the cold?

All this time a woman
erases herself from the night

like a moon. She is thankful
for her alibi, this invisible

layer of skin.