Where are the sisters
to tell me why my skin is rumpled
like sheets hiding kittens,
to look at me like a reflection, the same width
of hips, curve of cheekbone, bend of back,
to answer me whether the smiles of a man
will sum to slow-spun love or split wrists,
Why did my mother
remove the eggs, small and month-
shaped, from her boiling red nest,
remove her chances of daughters with the years
that grew her hair white, too many to pluck,
remove my place in a middle, a million moments,
a motion of fingers that would have braided into belonging?