she
stolen from my bone
is it any wonder
i hunger to tunnel back
...
won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
...
it is all blood and breaking,
blood and breaking, the thing
drops out of its box squalling
into the light. they are both squalling,
...
listen children
keep this in the place
you have for keeping
always
...
ask me to tell how it feels
remembering your mother's face
turned to water under the white words
of the man at the shoe store. ask me,
...
it is hard to remain human on a day
when birds perch weeping
in the trees and the squirrel eyes
do not look away but the dog ones do
...
curling them around
i hold their bodies in obscene embrace
thinking of everything but kinship.
collards and kale
...