five.

My mother calls, and starts her conversation
with, "Your father doesn't want to play Pontius Pilate,"
and I think, this again? But this is what we do.

We argue, in that way that means we agree. Static. A breath.
In the background I can hear him laughing. We talk only
when my mother calls and starts the conversation.

And it hurts, this open space. I still know the words
but no longer believe them, can only recite the childhood
verses, think, this again. This is what I do

to keep the peace, to paste myself into a family
who raised me and let me go. I answer, because
my mother calls. She starts a conversation, and

the careful language of biblical interpretation holds me
still, a string from her heart to mine, a mirror of our losses.
Even as I think not again, this is what I do:

I keep talking. She doesn't interrupt, I break into tears
and still the words come, our onslaught of uncertainties.
My mother calls, she starts the conversation,
and I think, finally. Again. Let this be what we do.