The guests gone, brightness
collapses in the room, conversation
in echo and shreds, wine dregs
silencing the crystal
From the green whorl of the radio
dial a Tibetan nun chants throaty
double-note prayers as if freeing
twin souls from her chest
The announcer confides that this nun,
Choying, as eldest daughter, cooked,
cleaned, cared for her brothers,
received her father’s nightly beatings
I gather the silverware, count it
into the drawer. Fork is missing again,
the one with the crooked tine
Too poor for doctors, Choying helped
her aunt claw the newest baby, breached
and breathless, from her mother’s womb.
Tears and vomit as she ran. “Kill me or let
me go,” she told her father when he caught
her far down the path
Found before in the garbage, under
the chest—some things need to leave,
this woman-child who wants no children
of her own, helps the harelip, the clubfoot
Fork is wedged beneath the door
and I wonder why eleven can’t be enough
where open leads
what difference difference makes
why no tune sits on my lips
what happens to those who
cannot double their voice and sing