late birthday poem '08

my mother used to
tell me when i was younger that
my face was not hers, not her husband's, as well.
it belonged to the sea, she said, and my small poems
were fish that kept
moving with the waves. they move because you are, she used
to say, in that conversational manner
of hers that irritated me. now that
i am 26, i hardly believe that anymore. i mean,
what i really want is to hold on to that smirk
she had while she said it. the
years confused me, made me bored
with memory and atonement. but i have forgiven this woman ---
my mother --- and her hard eyes, so dark,
they were almost golden. if it is at all possible
to end this poem the way she had,
nakedly losing and having everything all
at once, this is how i would have done it.