excerpts from a letter to my mother’s net curtains

like you a letter should be transparent
a mesh of words let go
threading the margin between surreal and
complicit
my eyewitnesses speaking in stitches
remember the frillings and trimmings
the negative acoustic of decay and disorder
cleanliness whispered to godliness
their embroidered conversations
silting the question of breath caught by streetlight
a filament between home and not-home

inside your quiet folds
the claustrophobia of domesticity
lies loosely against the tight-lipped fabric of
containment
a conjugal sieve of dust and secrets
where everything and nothing is private
grime gossip greed lust
do you still love those gothic novels
their black and white silence
their arched window violence
needle marks of motherhood
and orphaned young heroines
who must go to bed hungry night after night

dressed in these forensic veils
you can see right through me
that i am merely matter out…