For R

So my babe,
My pink and red babe,
Whooshed out into the sanitized tube.
I dared not suppose you were off
With Polaris.
Until I hurled myself
Down the white mountain,
The moment my face cut
Ice // the ground cried And bled.
Your sweet name.

( I want
ed to share a sleep with you,
dear blind babe of my womb,
my weak, trembly heart
wish
ed to share a song, in your fleeting unborn hold.)


Another One For R

O

breed of the U ter us,
do preach on the fish and rust
swimming in the narrows.

how sometimes the albatross flies in,
leaves you a kiss,
and leaves you to pigeon-toe
down the church aisle.


III
For R

Baby,
You are
why i wailed, hammered
the leftovers of this shell,
until i had no face,
no boundary between, this, this, and the face of the world.
until i lost my sex and thunder.
i lost my sex asunder.
(Your mother’s) mind is,
an unrepentant growing
pendant lying between
unmilked sourdough breasts baked in their
own fetid season.
did i dream he and i were, lying?
next to each other, and he
put himself in, shot a small hole
in my belly when he came. or did that
really happen? like, the time
i itched so much i ripped the skin off my leg
and found a single sweating
feather.
Or you, Baby?
Baby,
you should have heard how my mother hushed my wailing
“quiet or they’ll drag you away to the hospital,
they’ll talk about us. about me.” how she looked down in shame.
wrung about her neck when i pissed all over myself.
and she asked how i could let myself go crazy over You; Ba-bye.
o mommy, mommy. my Baby went.
Ba-bye. she replied,
“its nothing really. na-thing re-ally.”
dear sweet, You,
listen,
You’re na-thing ree-ally, Baby,
Ba-bye.

but i lie. (oh such silly memory
don’t fly too far away, Your talons are still
embedded in my vain grasp.)


IV
For R

In March I fucked a boy named Mike
Because he was the thing to do,
To make me remember a bit
Of youth. I pummeled myself
Into his lap. Pummeled baby, you made
Me pummel myself. Lap up his fraudulent embrace,
Lap him up because my womb
Was empty, felt strange, felt cold,
The winter you
Left behind.

The bees have long stopped buzzing this April.
I hold myself close together at night, knowing
I am merely imagining
Your felt padded fingertips
Clinging on my left shoulder,
Left behind.

And May, I cried out every night.
I was wrong.
I was wrong.
I should have carried you
To term. I should have. I should have.
But I am old now. I understand “woman” now.
Bitter bitter, pitter patter,
I watched the birds fly straight into my window.
The angels sent them to pluck out my eyes, my eyes
I covered my face and cried,
And then
Left

Their awkward brown wings
To molt in the soft grass.

©hRj 2006