the people that say you can raise a daughter
on your own have never tried.

I am sure her chest cracked
leaving my grandmother
in pink fleece and white socks
on the porch of a house like
that, the way I am sure she
longed for him still, and
without a reminder.
later, she will pull
a light green pacifier from her
bathrobe
and tell a worried neighbor;
her, breath of bourbon
and donuts and her hair
falling out in clumps,
the way the neighbor cleaned
the shower drain,
in her native language asking
her if she had been babysitting.

the mother smart,
ripped it from the baby’s mouth
so she’d wail and the door
would open and they’d see her
swaddled on the bare concrete:
her only daughter,
chilled and panicked.

“Black cohosh (redone)” or “grief pt 5”