Mother’s 20-year-old Mattress
Inside: springs : wood : lint : moths : hair : spiders :
cotton : condoms : salt : sweat : spit : so much
skin : blood : tea : cough syrup : carbonated water :
carbon : honey : paper : nails : nicotine : polish : ash : nitrogen:
the Russian red-gold wedding band she wore
until it wouldn’t fit her swelling
On top: the body America gave her : heavy : soft :
sinking : her back rounding metal and fabric
to canoe : her back won’t float : aching
from the past : aching for it more : they’re doing
x-rays she told me : waves and waves:
she’s always drowning in the dreams : the pain
is never there when I wake up she says :
insists it’s not the mattress : refuses something new :
tells me to stop blaming surface :
anxiety and immigration : tells me I don’t know how
to pity her : if my body can bear she says :
a body : an ocean : this bed can keep on bearing mine
Underneath: the sales receipt
for Sealy Beautyrest
Plush Pillowtop Queen
delivery included
as a child she slept
on a wooden board
for her scoliosis
woke broken
termites in her hair
under her nails
between her gums
her mouth a bed
never again she said
will anybody tell me
what I must bear
beneath me
about the author
