Thank you, mother.

You gave me fucking Cohen.
Not the brothers the Leonard.
He was always late in December.
But I’m on Mars
and it has been lonely. It’s dry and arid,
like a Christmas flooding.

That’s why you made me a poet
as you said, for art’s sake,
and it does look like art.
But I see you, mother,
it is not all about being present.
It is about being absent.

In absence,
you can always say you were here,
that poets tend to be alike.
But verses are made of wood,
and like wood is solid, detailed,
so dawn has its darkness.

But, mother, thank you mother,
don’t look at me, you know,
woes are without comfort.
That’s why they do smile,
believe me, they do smile
like aged teen spirit.

(To Tatiana Faia)