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