Letting the Wind In

             after “Hills Like White Elephants”

I always thought I was second

             in a line that starts with a ghost girl

but today she told me a story,

             a trip to New York hugging the coast

all the way up, of parents, of dips

             in the road that sent shooting pains

up her spine. Suddenly, I become third.

             She says, cried the whole way there

and back. Says, I didn’t know Roe & Wade

             were coming yet. Says, I didn’t say

before because I wanted to save you.

             I want to tell her, like the trees, we pass on

broken seeds in our roots. I want to tell

             her the wind has changed now,

that when it blows through a forest

             of mothers and living daughters,

it doesn’t smell like hospital rooms

             in buildings with hidden entrances,

but instead I say, I wish you’d told me

             sooner.