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Mother

Of what should I construct you, my one

            Substantiative force? I have no ashes to tide

                        The evening's end. The grate is anaesthetic, and

White as if innocent. I have no sadness

            Left to haul your shadows in. No words to

                        Mortgage at your name. You are a sleep to me.

A dull sleep in the afternoon, waking to

            Find the day darker, and that rain had fallen.

                        My father died in his arms on such an afternoon.

How should I conjugate you, where you

            Wash in the dream of your loneliness?

                        I would feel I had lost you, but a wife never loses.

The little interval of night is come : I

            Must love a parabolic form, blent away

                        From me across the fabric of his own personhood.

What creature watches the light but me?

            My lover walks among the stars of the wood,

                        Like the figure of Moses where the waves leap up.

God keep the silent words that fall there.

            Paint me in the ashes of your love!

                        I dance in the forest of ages. Father, are your arms

Open? Are your lungs flowering now
            Like corals from the chest of your skeleton?

                        I was not born to dance alone. You should see the

Fires that live and die each night in my body.

            My husband : your bandage blinds you, and your gin.

                        I have not hidden the bloom of my wound this year.

You would have known that, had you seen me.

            I lie in the history of this night's sleep. Turn to me!

                        Speak the words of love to me and I will let you in.