1.
There is no way, as a child, to be prepared
       or to recognize in time to defend ourselves
              that we have arrived in an imperfect world
in which everyone, even those we most love,
       is speckled with some gross failing (forever
              beyond the ken of their rehabilitation)
that requires we strive to understand
       something about their life in order to
              forgive them, like sending out taproots
into the wet or parched soil where they’ve come from,
       feeling spread toes inside the bamboo
              and the barrel cactus, some fault
that begs we imagine the moon-phase mineral events
       and thoughts settling one by one like feathers
              in the staircase of their spine’s logic,
and to do this again and again
       for many seasons, expecting no other progress,
              and we slowly learn to do this
and then only this, because we understand that it is necessary
       and that we ourselves require it
              because before we could begin to defend ourselves
from a world of fault, we were already its next of kin,
       its inheritor and progenitor, unwittingly,
              unknowingly at first, and then gradually
awakening one by one to our errors
       as they touched each thing in our house,
              as they bruised, however slightly,
each face we love.

2.
Near the end, when my mother’s universe
       was becoming the bedroom of a house
              she rented for her death and also the path
to the bathroom where she’d give herself
       enemas or vomit beside little lavender
              gift soaps and bath salts, a woman named Janice,
who had once been her close friend and then
       had “turned” against her in a power struggle
              among local midwives, returned
and gave my mom an iris plant.
       And it was lovely there beside the bed,
             taking no notice of death, flowering,
as we came and went with carrot juice, smaller
       and smaller portions of food, and then finally,
              only chocolate covered almonds,
as faces rose like coins from the bottom of a fountain
       to sit beside her and talk about whatever
              they could think to talk about
with a woman who was dying, the iris
       kept flowering. It seemed almost eternal,
              its purple petals still administering some last rite
of color, when we found her, arm flung-out
       over the bedside, palm upright, in mid-air
             half-fisted beside the iris, as if unsure
whether to release or cling to this world
       as she departed. And two days after the funeral—
              my older sister and I still in that foreign house
packing up the remnants of my mother’s life—
       Janice came back. Except, because as a girl Polio
              had nearly killed her, leaving her
obese and crutch-bound, she sent her daughter
       to the door. So that it was her daughter’s
              black hair, soft as riverwater,
that no man had ever grasped as he came inside her;
       it was her young eyes, like horses’ eyes,
              that knew nothing of this world
that stood there, while her mother waited
       in the mini-van, engine idling,
              stood there, dutifully, before my sister and me
and asked to have the iris back.