My mother writes my name in the sand. Upside down
It looks like my grandmother’s.
Looks back at me, still as a body
Brimming with salt. So still,
I mistake her for just a body.
An opening limitless
Enough for her name to collapse out of—
her angel to drift into.
I spell it out to the thrush of white caps,
Nipples of the sea,
Washing over the letters until they, too, melt away.
Until they taste bitter in the seams of my mouth.
Like the grisly tart of breast milk,
the bitter of Ginger, my mother’s mother.
