Namesake

Addie Tsai

I want to tell you something I’ve told you before,

how my mother, pregnant, held us—

her belly—swirling, sitting on a seventies sofa,

watching Paper Moon. Little spitfire

Addie, learning how to con, eight

& motherless, smoking a cigarette. Fingers

trembling from the longing of the joint

that used to grace them, Mama picked up 

crocheting needles instead, or, at least,

that’s the story she’d tell us. I was the one

who kicked my twin in the womb,

another story I inhaled like the gospel

I’d never been taught but burned to learn,

to fill the hole between the truths,

& everything else. She loved her grandmother,

also named Addie, and that was something

I did believe. I dreamed the stories she told

me into being, miles and miles of green

grass, my mama’s hands held by the soap

they made together, their faces

freckling and reddening in the sun,

just like mine.