my mother and I becoming each other, / her bruises and scars passed down, / family heirlooms that will take / me decades to stop wearing,

Every daughter / has a cage around her head / and a mother on the cross. / I always hope to take it off, and rarely do. / Instead, I climb up, like a child into the bed. / I nail myself beside you.

"You survive this and in some terrible way, which I suppose no one can ever describe, you are compelled, you are corralled, you are bullwhipped into dealing with whatever it is that hurt you. And what is crucial here is that if it hurt you, that is not what’s important. Everybody’s hurt. What is important, what corrals you, what bullwhips you, what

Who shall I curse that I grew up / believing in my mother’s face / or that I lived in fear of potent darkness / wearing my father’s shape / they have both marked me / with their blind and terrible love / and I am lustful now for my own name.