My daugher’s skull was cut open
last week. I braid her hair, try not to see
the gash and Frankenstein’s monster staples
holding her together, and I think of cleave: 

cleave to, cleave apart… How does
a word simultaneously mean to join
and to separate? Like how this new
generation uses literally to mean

both literally and figuratively. How can
a thing be itself and its opposite? How can 
heal mean slice and salve? How can
mother mean to always hold and to still let go?