by S.J. Bonfoey

As a girl I played clarinet 

first chair or I didn’t I

fell in love with your father 

on a hay ride in West Virginia or was it

a military base in Maryland 

I almost died giving birth to my eldest

so I never had any other children

except you of course

of course you are my daughter

After all you look nothing like

me and what am I

if not an invention

Beneath the ground

images dance past my

closed eyelids Nostalgia

blurred colors

fractured visions

apocryphal memories 

What does it mean to be the

architect of your own story

It means…

everything 

nothing 

and everything 

that should have been.