Micheline Maylor: She tells me,

She tells me,

The toilet in the basement has belched up and over
its intestinal wreckage, drained-stained the floor
like a party goer dunked up and shaken sober.

In my new office, I’ve become the scapegoat
for my grandmother’s guilt. I’ve become a beacon
of success. I hardly pick up the phone anymore.

She tells of irrelevant relatives, things
I walked away from. I tell her, you taught
the art of dehydration. I was so parched.

Didn’t I tell you, I was a fern in the desert,
a plate spinner with thin skin and shoeless,
didn’t I warn you from the start?