Home Surgery

I looked at the microwave door

and saw a woman I didn't recognize.

Or maybe I did—it was my mother

on the Tuesday before she stopped trying.

I took the kitchen shears, the ones

that can't even handle a cereal box.

They didn't cut. They chewed.

My head is a map of a panic attack now.

There's a wet clump in the basin

looking like a dead, drowned spider.

I missed a spot behind the ear—

no, I took too much. There’s a hole.