My body is 50% grief,
30% guilt,
20% easy rage. In the cage 
of my body 
I’ve grown restless, my spirit
attuned to the wind
and how it carries the scent of smoke
only when I’m not paying attention.

I can look down the tracks
and see the ghosts of all the women
who birthed me,
my atoms hidden in their wombs 
before the future came for them.
I can’t measure how much of myself
belongs to them; I can only count
the breaks in my voice

when the words are too hard. 
Those words say I wasn’t there to hold 
her head up,
to put her to bed or listen 
to her phantoms. They say
that when the end comes
we are always alone 
and that it can’t be quantified.