I knew you were coming 
The night I dreamed of dolphins
Walking with your father 
Beneath moonlit veils of Spanish moss
So unlike the icy drapes 
That cascade from northern roofs
I had gazed with joy and awe 
So many years before 
As those sleek coursers 
Sine-curved up the Broad River
That night I stood on boulders
Staring into a sea the color of pecans
From a depth where even my night-mind 
Knew no air-breather could ascend
I watched a dolphin fly toward the surface 
Mesmerized by that determined arrow
I stared as if into a hand-mirror
When the dolphin stood tall on his silver flukes
Held me for an indelible instant 
In the full sunshine of his gentle smile
Then bent his strong neck 
And kissed me on the cheek
Un-pleating my body in one move
I sat up 
Sure like tropical dawn 
That bursts from dream to daylight 
And I knew as I have never known anything 
Before or since
You were coming 
The night I dreamed of dolphins

I maintain I did not know my mother
Not that I was adopted no I’m her child
Same sharp nose to burst a pop can
Same wrinkles scored in the mitochondrial DNA
Our turkeys roast to similar perfection wreathed in tin foil
And my pie crusts float off their fluted dishes 
Because I cut in the butter with my mother’s light hand
But I am vegan and no longer bother with such occupations
Somehow it seems I lost the thread
Watching my mother lick her fingers
To target the lisle through the needle’s eye
Pulling the ends even to twist them around her fore-finger
And slide the twined threads between pointer and thumb 
To make a Gorgon’s head
I do not sew but I tie a knot just the same way 
Somewhere I lost the thread of housekeeping too
Clean enough to eat off the floor interests me less 
Than the solitude of my satellite office 
Where they top my coffee with almond milk foamed just the way I like it 
And I follow only the virtual threads that interest me 
Yet I have shown almost everyone with whom I have ever slept 
The only dignified way to pack a duvet into a slip
Turn the case inside out
Reach into the corners to grab the duvet’s ears 
And quickly muffle them as you flip the whole thing right-side-out 
Just the way my mother did
I am not the one to pluck a spot of lint
Or tuck your tags back inside your shirt
That was my mother’s too-familiar way even with strangers
But I bring home garments and cut out the labels
Picking loose threads clean so they won’t niggle my neck
As a kid I stood for hours in August heat 
Despising the straightening of hems before school each September
But I still have never worn a dress whose plaid did not match under the arms 
Once upon a time I declined to marry a man 
Whose sister ironed her children’s socks and underwear
I could neither relate nor become related to that 
That’s where I think even my mother would have known to draw the line