Perhaps She Deserves to Get Caught

On sad nights my mother pulls out her rosary beads
and prays them, slowly,
twisting them through her aching fingers.
She likes how hard they are against her drooping skin,
tiny swollen marbles she fingers in the dark.
They shine with the sweat from her crying palms.

Her palms cry on me the same way,
leaving wet prints on my face and back
when she tucks me in at night.
Someday she will kill
someone, and the cops will come and brush me with
powder. They will pluck my mother’s fingerprints from my back
one by one by one.

Some nights I pull the covers over myself
so she doesn’t leave her mark,
but other times I let her touch me.
She is so foolish.