IN KANSAS, SHE SWINGS

open the car door,
tells my father,
I can’t take this
anymore.

At home my mother’s
Limoges vase. Lip &
foot trimmed in gold.
A stem held upright
in its midnight blue
belly. Wild roses.

Her hands grapple
with a rolling pin,
& she rows & rows
& again she rows
her dough out into
an ocean. She dives
into brackish lagoons.

It’s her thyroid,
my father says.
Sometimes,
it’s easier to blame
an internal organ.

Thirteen Myna Birds