My gone mother sees me in my grief overalls, says

Strip the cloak of clichés
you've buried yourself under, 
there are better graves to ghost.
Look, the gray whales are dying, 
socialism has been aborted
in an American womb,
and your father isn't your father 
like he used to be—less stone, more salt. 
If you must gin, give it lime
& spine, don't permit grief 
to whitewash you 
in the suburban gloom 
I worked 24/7 to repaint.
Zipline on the rift of
my unspent anger. Our unused
skillet shines for you, kiss
its engraved initials, PV. 
Could be me, could be you.
Record the seasons I couldn't:
isolation, Internet and TikTok.
I hear they have a dimension now 
which can bring any wild animal 
into your room through a screen. 
Make me a tiger. Grow taller 
than monsoon grass. I'll walk 
through you and nobody will know. 

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Preeti Vangani is an Indian poet and personal essayist. Born and raised in Mumbai, she is the author of Mother Tongue Apologize (RLFPA Editions), her first book of poems (selected as the winner of RL India Poetry Prize.) Her work has been published in  BOAAT, Gulf Coast, and Threepenny Review, among other journals. She is the Poetry Editor for Glass Journal, a Poet Mentor at Youth Speaks, and holds an MFA (Writing) from University of San Francisco.