My mother calls to say she isn’t dead
but choked on a cheap kebab. You say you’re
a writer. What’s so tough it won’t go down?

What can I do? Voices from a blotted-out
planet tell her I’m not her daughter.
My mother calls to say she isn’t dead

but OD’d on the shitter. I stomp, I beat,
I chew the bites I feed my daughter.
What’s so tough it won’t go down? She read

me French who now reads phantom doodles
on her flesh, those padded walls my author.
They call me Mother, the loving dead,

mes étoiles. I sell science my parts. Adieu.
I save love for poems. I get wet, I sing.
Écrivez-moi vite qu’elle est revenue.

Students dissect the pearly tissue
that held these bones. My cadaver rings.
My mother calls to say she isn’t dead
and Gristle! I’m her writer. I get it down.