Double-Entry

Shareen K. Murayama

My mother and I wait for fortune
to fall. Our pockets plump

with college loans. In some cities,
a virgin or child is sacrificed

to quell that with fur on back and ears.
Is it better to feign complicity

or fly faster with less control?
Even water deities can tally lateness.

My mother’s sacrifices are tea-stained,
like a leash-tan around my leg

skinning her past from today’s last light.
I worry over holes in zero and options.

I forage all trails less egalitarian
than my own body. My mother and I

wait for my college degree
to mean something.

She gardens peppers, tomatoes, paprika:
nightshades that flower at night.

Afterwards, some bodies inflame
against things that harm them:

pain, swelling, loss of function,
like safe passages for boats.