One Day I'll Wake Up and Ask Her

Before you knew me, my potential wasa calligram of fractured waves containinga thousand haikus and paper cranes andI was bee sting / cloud / broken mouth /

proud / as a minnow untangling itself fromcorrupting currents. Restore innocence andoxygen. The flower was paper, then clay,then a kiln fire. The sun was shorn off into

fractals, everyone wears the sheepskin ofgenerations and bravery. I’m not interestedin the poem where the hero spirals downinto the root of their wants, their hands full

of sparks like a divine electrician. I rememberwaking up just this morning, sure that it hadrained, every noun a weathered grey withthe yawn of our mattress thinned with gossamer-

coloured light. I feel roots everywhere:tangled with a bow string, with waves ofcherry blossom trees. Every generation had

a craft. They worked with porcelain, food,and silence. Now my mother’s kimono isused as a curtain, but when I call you to askabout history, I’m pulling it away, I’masking for the sun to pour through, becauseI’m ready to wake up.