CYCLE

by Cate Coyles

Like a well-oiled heirloom your mother handed you

what her mother gave to her and you

tried to gift it to me,

a family crest backdropping the threats you left hanging

in the air like gashes from lashing out

one too many times with your razor-tongued whip

Someone stole the seat off your bicycle and without

a thief to hate you unloaded your anger on our plans

and shot out my extended hand

So we went without you and instead I cried in the car about

how I was bleeding out from all these paper cuts

A false seraphim was living in the room down the hall and you

shone so bright I was blinded to all the hauntings in our home.

And this angel could never commit any wrongdoing, no ma’am,

fault lines dripping from your mouth like liquor

Fault lines splitting our foundation apart

Guilt was the spear you carried so high on your horse

and you drove it into my thigh and neck

and back and heart

Grief is not five stages actually it’s

a half-flooded carousel of sorrow and

anger and relief and regret and hurt and shame

and fury and guilt and freedom and misery and

distress hope fear anguish again again again up and down

alternating between gulping air or salt water—

Seeing it all and then right back down in it you go—

She jammed the lever before getting kicked out

of the operating booth and now

I can’t get off this ride

Your mother’s legacy, I found it abandoned in the corner when I

swept up the last of your shattered pieces and I left it

outside your new door with the rest of the scraps you forgot.

I don’t want it.

You can put it on the shelf with all your rage or throw it

down the well so the ripples distort your self-reflection or cage it

in your liver and ignore it for a juice cleanse.

I was hoping you’d leave an apology behind but I guess you keep

your sorrys in the same place you keep your thank yous so

Saying goodbye is my last act of love for you and my first

act of love for me