SECRETS

there were moments my mother

would tell me secrets

over dinner

show me where the scars were

where oily skin folded itself

into pain crevices like receipts

of undesirable produce

voice trembling and tumbling

into me like marrow loose

from jagged bone

secrets that cut and stuck

and stayed and fattened like

foot-in foot-out lovers that

slump sofas and kissy-kissy

whenever threatened with

get the hell out

secrets that knew how

to use fork and knife

better than she did