ORIGAMI

It’s Friday morning, 7 A.M.,

Kiki kept her word. We’re going to New York City!

Getting dressed, I hear deranged shrieking!

It must be a neighbor, or an injured animal?

It’s so loud!

I jump out of bed into the cold room.

Was someone knifed?

Murdered?

This is horror movie–type screaming.

I listen hard.

It is very, very nearby, then I realize

it’s coming from inside our apartment.

It can’t be my mother.

She doesn’t get up until ten or eleven.

I shuffle, find my robe,

inch toward the sounds.

What? She’s crumpled up on her bedroom floor.

The shrieking is her!

My mother’s folded over like origami

and I can’t make out much.

I am afraid to do anything

but stand there covering my ears.

I’ve never heard these sounds before.

There are phrases

but they don’t have beginnings

or ends, just wide-open vowels,

almost like something is stuck in her,

something sharp.

I look for blood but there is none.

I don’t breathe.

I’m cold. But I’m more than cold.

I only know that this pain she is in

will land on me.

She’s snapped.

Danger!

Anything I try to do to help her

will backfire.

I shower, tell Davy to call Gran,

and make my great escape.