[Ed. note: Above, you can listen to poet Chris Campanioni reading this poem.]
♦♦♦
only mothers only mother
tongue to say what I cannot say
otherwise at home or away
from crowds or a way
with crowds all the people
I have to answer to at once
before & after & not
before not after
exactly now
looking up I can look up
seen at 11:42 pm
I can be seen I can
scroll on & see
endless rows of wheat
if I close my eyes a thing
cultivated for its seed
mutant forms preferentially chosen
by farmers preferential always
to separate & select other
wise couldn’t have me otherwise
I’d die from lack of palm
placing me on every tongue
to be eaten to evaporate
like a good host to be one
& only one instead
of all three being one
at the same time & all
the time my mother my father me
orphaned into citizenship to be
a citizen what else what else
could it mean to have such privilege
of sitting still in silence when being
asked to when being asked
to live & to live & to live
without having to say you are
welcome I am not
reminded I am I am I can
feel it I remember I know
the rich
confusion between a thing &
I arrives always
through violence
