two ships passing in the night

poetry by V. Walker, a poem from my forthcoming, second poetry book, "What I Know of Love I Learned From Grief"

Frank Wilbert Stokes, The Phantom Ship, Atlantic Ocean, ca. 1903, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum

mother lied 
mother lied
mother lied

she does it
all the fucking time.

mother lied
mother lied
mother lied. 

a decade
and a half
since we spoke
my emails bounce.
I yearn for
the sisterhood
we were denied

but mother lies
and yet, alone,
I do not cry for her. 
empathy has left 
my blood —
never again.

some nights I lie awake, 
your name lingers in my mind. 
I wonder what my nephew looks like
and if you look in the mirror
and see the monster that made us. 

some nights I lie awake 
with regret
for mistakes I did not make 
and for the way
our sails never fly side by side.