My Mother Tells Me She May Have Been the Product of Rape

She says it turns out mice have chewed 
around the one tree outside her apartment, 
and now the tree will have difficulty drinking. 
The landscaper called it girdling. I shudder,

thinking this could explain why 
my grandmother never hugged
my mother. She says mice are pretty sneaky 
and tend to feed on bark by burrowing

above ground beneath the snow,
which makes me think how my grandmother 
shook imperceptibly anytime she was startled.
My mother says she tried to find

the answer herself. She says that as we speak, 
they’re likely moving from tunnel to tree, 
and in May, the damage will affect the leaves.
I want to cry, this snowfall

a scatter-hush outside, the bastard
oak embracing the sky, and my mother 
on the couch returning to solitaire
on her phone. There is no answer,

except the past with its muffled timbre, 
and my grandmother was always sweeping 
snow off her hedges and wiping
off counters and cabinets and my questions

never got anywhere and my own shame 
is gnawing at me now for taking
from the dark cakes my grandmother made, 
yet never understanding why she took

pills with a bottle of rubbing alcohol after 
she finally withdrew one spring. If only
I could be an arborist, give my mother a sight 
more solid than silence. I can only remember 
that tree is derived from the same root as true.

Read more from Issue 18.2.