between the boiling coffee that waits for

no man      to the

genie of false courtesies and lies

i held on for one second

 

no

not the second in which i stepped backwards

from my mother’s room to my mother’s wishes

or the second it takes to crawl out of the bed

and lie                i was already up

 

i mean the second it takes for a mother to watch her

daughter wash down into a coma

out with the wind because the driver     and the phone

the second it took for me to find the blade and

play with it

the second in with my sister watched her

childhood slip under his underpants

 

that second

and the everything that wanes