I.       Mother

I know her story better than I know my own.

She calls herself the daughter of a lawyer and a house
of cards. A house of tin cans. Mother curses Halmeoni

for the man she brought her to love. In the same breath
she praises her for the God she brought her

to trust. Mother tells me it isn’t love unless the feeling is
full of sacrifice. I ask her if she sacrificed her dreams.

She tells me blood needs to flow both directions.
She still loves me and my brother. She says, divorce

is the new promise—a promise better written than said.
She does the paperwork, hand-stitching her signature.

When I was old enough to bite through bone, she taught me
the difference between flesh and faith. Between father

and man. Between money and money. I wanted to ask her why
but I didn’t. She answered anyway: not all things are best

left hidden.

II.      Mom

I’m the youngest born by the youngest
born—but I grew older as I listened to mom’s voice

break over the phone, grandma’s voice shattering
into a nest of moths. Mom always shuts her door before

picking up, but it’s made of wood, not stone. Through cracks, I hear
her voice crack. I still close my door, scribbling loudly

through math problems, as if addition cancels out
subtraction. I should have left sooner. I should have—tears

seep through the walls, the heat melting plaster
to molasses. Mom once told me that she stayed

because of my brother and me. It’s your fault, she says
to Halmeoni, but the words hit me like fists of water, my knees

drilled into the wooden tiles of my room. Mother says, surrender is
a type of victory, and I split open, an overripe pomegranate.

Seeds spill out, then stick to the ground. They gleam like little teeth.

III.      Umma

It’s already too late
for dinner when mom comes out. She washed her face

but didn’t wait for her bloodshot eyes to melt, didn’t
straighten her hair. She talks first. Tells us that she’s sorry

for making us wait. I say it’s nothing. She asks us
to wait a little longer, and I wonder if she knows I know. If

she holds herself together with something more fragile
than skin. If the cracks in her voice stitch themselves

back to bone at night, if each word cinders to ash
as it sits on her tongue. We spread silence thick, hardened

like taffy—you could break a tooth on it.