I would like to write a poem

my mother can translate
word for word. We sit

either side of a long table &
ask the world’s accountant

for everything
to balance out, for the poem

to mean what it means.
It is too late. We

open our mouths
& out falls silence —
like walking through a forest

thinking of pianos.
My mother & I meet

in long lines,
before scarce relics,

forgetting nothing
is equally distributed

but history. We watch
herrings dart, scalic

& melodious. We watch
a high-rise rise from

billions-year-old earth.
We watch life interlock

vertically, contrapuntally:
dishwater, sewage, drain-

pipes. The upstairs newborn’s
cry is the world’s first

fugue. Everything
happens & vanishes

like music. Everything
translates into cabbage moths

in the wind. We look up &
read the pale wings of a language
no one speaks.