If it rains, you'll drown

My mother, nearly perfect
bucked tooth smile,
pearly nose-upturned
to the sky (just enough
to be called ski slope,
to hear them say "if it rains,
you'll drown", to be named
homecoming queen), told
that her offspring, freshly uprooted
from the womb, is dead,
the size of a butter stick,
sits patiently in white paper gown,
waiting for the opportune time
to ask where it is that the
dead babies go.