The Composite

The steam from the roast is a wet, thick veil.

I hear my mother’s mouth begin to complain

about the humidity and the mail,

and I realize the voice is coming from my own brain.

I look down at the heavy silver fork

clutched in a fist I recognize as his.

The way I stab the potato, the way I torque

the metal—I am exactly what this is.

My thumb is pressing into the cold tines,

white at the knuckle, trying to find a break.

But the blood just follows the old, deep lines

of every mistake they ever had to make.