On a Friday evening, my mother tells me about her regrets

When I am a child, I find my mother’s heart 

in between sidewalk cracks and imagine that it is whole. 

I rub my nails along the crevices of the surface, file them

down against splinters in her back, until my nails match hers. I feel 

it thrum in Morse code, heartbeat against the back

that is tucked in between sticks and stones. She is 

my mother, so she does not listen to the beat

of what she wants and bends back over spine, regretting

what could have been. Her forefinger angles away

from the callouses on her middle finger, scared

to hope, and scared to wish. And so, I walk a little

faster, leap past the cracks, just so

I won’t break my mother’s back.