Saturday, January 15, 2011


MOTHERHOOD


I cup you in my hands
because you are that small. My heart is a battalion
of aching soldiers. This is my lonely weapon: love. Love
in her deep blue camouflage. I weep and draw a crowd
but no one sees
the numberless bones that poke
from the gutters,
broken. This is war.

Motherhood is a wound.
I hold you and you
are happy.
I am lifted into a different country.
The way I love you is a humid jungle, swaying
in its own haunted silence.
I march to the warcry and thrust into battle,
the lonely burning core.

I am the war,
the hands that seek to touch the warm pride
of your body.
You cannot speak or walk and when you cry
it is not the blind cry of a child but the muttering
of a small mathematician.
You count the bars of your wooden crib.
I lay in the dark and watch your fingers flick
across the ribs
of your bed.
I lay in the dark
and fight for our life.



AF
2001

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I love the visual. "My heart is a battalion of aching soldiers."