Dion O’Reilly

HELL ACCORDING TO MOTHER
Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
William Shakespeare, The Tempest

God’s punishing you,
she liked to say
if I fought her,

four limbs facing up
warding off the whip.
Or, fist cocked,

she’d say, I do this from love.
as if I’d rise
afterwards,

slick and radiant, sinless
and thinner—
just what she wanted.

Oddly, I did rise up— some spark
from the screenless hearth
set me ablaze.

It pleased her
to see me heal
—skin-wrapped fingers,

learning spoon-by-spoon,
to feed myself,
saline drip needled

to my forearm
as I baby-walked
the burn-ward.

But I rebulked,
too big, by then, to beat,
lacking belief

in Hell or its punishments,
which were any memories
of being her child

—luminous and burning.
Too much to feel.