Obscure As Her

My poor mother was absent in herself
my poor mother was absent as herself
so I invented her out of whole cloth
which fabric served me as a second skin

tangled very near the first, barbed with hope,
so that to try to tear it off brought hurt
as intimate as terror that went through
and through all my organs to bare of bone

separation seemed bloody matricide,
myself made murderer from fable
of merger that served to enable life
as it compromised the living of it

inspiration to be free to be me
was suggestion almost obscure as her