Born to me between the months of archaic
dark and mezzotint, each with eyes more
lucid, sons— my mother’s bones seep
marrow and her wrists brittle down
when most of all I want her
to hold you as I cannot.
I close in on getting her home,
near the shoal crest to the lee
of Ugiuvivak, its flanks veneered
with seafloor mud between sand ridges.
Her skin like her sister’s skin
thin and soft, falling away from us
like ash, suspended; sediment asea.