Mitosis: Amanda Blue Gotera

When things have bloomed, my mother
teaches me to hunt out the dead
blossoms that are no longer veined
and furled open but coiled dryly
over floret and anther, delicate threads
in withered prayer.

Daughters learn the ritual twist of neck
on stem, how easily a pattern
can be broken. They learn to tear
from the seam, to expose green
and play the trick so each may partake
a little longer in the nectarine pages
of lily, of stamen, of every sweet thing.

You must pluck our papery
skins before we go to seed,
before we repeat ourselves completely.
Partial helix. Idle spindle. We do not
wholly fill our rhythms. Instead
we must don our lip-thin petals again
and again, shed our weathered slips or else
bear that promised tithe.

We come apart and apart
and relive the same season
the same false spring.

On Walking Backwards: Anne Carson

My mother forbade us to walk backwards. That is how the dead walk, she would say. Where did she get this idea? Perhaps from a bad translation. The dead, after all, do not walk backwards but they do walk behind us. They have no lungs and cannot call out but would love for us to turn around. They are victims of love, many of them.