I preach labor exploitation in the name of Christ
to my mom as I tell her about the youth group service trip I just finished
and she says, try being a stay at home mother
as I sit next to her
like an uncashed check. I’m driving through smoke
from fires three time zones away and,
if a tree falls in the forest and you find its corpse later,
is it still your fault?
I’m driving past my grandmother’s house
& remembering last Fourth of July
when she told us that the first word I spelled wrong was my own last name
because a man from the mountains of Tennessee two generations ago
could hold an ax but not a pen.
sometimes I use my grandmother’s maiden name
on inconsequential papers for the sake of feminism
but really for the sake of opposition.
I want to tell my mother I wish she’d get angry,
but everyone tells me I have her teeth so how is that fair?
our bodies already turn on themselves, Mom, to the point where
we are each other’s only mirrors.
I am your mirror and I am your unwritten historical fiction novel
and I am sorry but the last thing I want to be
is smoke.