My mother / said / she would / never / go swimming
I was dreaming / she laid down / in the grass /with her hair
in the river / Her dark / hair became / the water / When I woke up

I told my mother / she was never stupid / In the dream / her hair
became / the river / because, in real life / she is afraid / of water
We are / what we are / afraid of / too much / Siblings can be

so cruel / My mother's / sisters / had bullied her / called her some
dumb thing / I don't know / the ways my siblings / have maimed me
yet / I do remember / when my older sister / nearly drowned

my mother pushed me / out of the way / to save her / How I hated
my mother / How I wanted / to be underwater / How I willed
my body / breakable / and my mother / pulling her arms / too tight

around my center / her soft / wet hair / down my back.


Note: The title is from Kathleen Ossip's poem "A Valley View."