blues for the children

Can't get back my baby

No matter what I do

I can't get back my baby 

No matter what I try to do

Whole world full of children shining

All I want is you

Fed my baby peanut butter

Fed my baby rice and beans

Can't put meat on the table

Can't grow backyard greens

Fed my baby peanut butter

Bills past due again

Want to burn that goddamn schoolhouse

Want to burn it to the ground

all those broken window schools

Just want to burn them down

Want to pack up all my babies

And leave this goddamn town

Five dollar bottle 

couple gram of weed

Gonna buy myself a bottle

and a little bag of weed

I might as well buy something 

I can't get what I need

Look at all the pretty babies

In their worn out tennis shoes

Look at all the pretty babies

Makes you want to sing the blues

Whole world full of children

All I want is you

I can't get back my baby

No matter what I do 

I said I can't get back my baby

Baby

No matter what I do

sunflowers

Three's turned herself

upside down again,
she crows, she kicks
her heels above her head
merrily, her legs long now,
summer brown stems,
and her feet are like sunflowers

(how i love the round
proud bowl of her belly
flipped now over her dainty chin,
over her grin, wide
over her teeth)

three is a fierce season,
an age of fists and teeth
into the world
(such tiny perfect teeth,
like white pebbles)
she shrieks, she crows,
peremptory, jubilant

Daughter, don't ever give up kicking your heels.
When you change your thin chest
and your round cheeks
for a full size set
keep on insisting
keep on crowing,
shriek your need.

Sunflower soul, keep
turning the world
around your bright wide joy

chicken

my daughter's pink bare feet
fat, and flat beneath her
on the porch concrete

her tiny chinpoint turned
she's perched
like a chicken

she's peering sideyed
eyeballing insects
drift and scramble past

hungry, her perch:
she might dart out her tender neck
to peck up

piecewise--one sixlegged wonder
at a time---peck
up this wide wonderfull, this world

a birth day

Once on the day after Christmas I lost an earring,

half of my Christmas present, a little smiling kawaii squid

(this in the bad old starving days 

when I was a girlshape made of brittle glass,

I wasn’t sad

I wasn’t sad)

it slipped out sometime that day—

when I was pulling espresso shots, ignoring 
the cramping 
and the clotting—

or maybe later at the clinic.

I don’t remember their faces, 

just the white coats

the necklace stethoscopes

they said any residual tissue would be 
taken

lab tested

I guess they sent us the papers

later

I was too numb then to ask 
for the scraps 

so we left 

bereft 

All I had of you then 

was my lost earring 

Later you gave
your first 
last

best 

gift:

the glass cracked 

that night 

we cried,

I cried

I could never have been your mother

I tried

I tried

I think that I was born then,

when you died

moments

Each day is a fist
full of moments.

Snot smeared fingers
brandish a bouquet
of boogers:
Here, Mom!
They are always for me.

Let's pretend
I don't notice you, quietly
poking little sticks
into the seams of the brown couch
and unpicking them.
White fluffs of stuffing drift
like spring flowers.

Let's pretend
you are dinosaurs, lumbering
through strewn toys;
you are better at sharing
when you are dinosaurs.
I am the mountain sleeping
on the brown couch,
I do not want
to erupt.
This volcano can sleep for
millions
and millions
of years.

The baby, walking
Here: hold
my huge finger
in your little fist.
Your folded hands are warm and tender
as wilting flowers.

found an old poem from baby felix

Don't ask me to string together syllables
abstractions or analyses--like beads
my brain congeals--these days
are thick: concrete, real
with rosetender skin
soured milk smell
squawks and squabbles, babbles
whys and wipes
stepped-on rice grains gluing themselves to socks
my body and my heart on call
to be poured out or spread
for hungry mouths and minds--

Dear god, make me the widow's cup of oil
this drop i have, this last drop
this very last drop
and still finding the last drop there 
to take
with one last fist of flour
hands falling into the familiar knead and press
to bake, again,
into their daily bread

birth story

Begin here:
unscrewing

Begin with
the unscrewing relentless
wrenching
open oh
opening

its beginning
the small
tensing the
thin primitive smell of
ancient fear: so

it begins, so, unbearable,
it goes on opening. This
unbearable breach, still
opening--

how i am opened for you
bloodpainted, torn: i am made all pain, and mute
a door for you:

So we begin the hungry months:

the hungry months, the dear birdgullet days,
their endless small indignities
the heavy tender breasts, the constant leaking
--i will be weeping:
milk, blood, tears

i will be made your milk
your meat, your bread
your fear, your comfort, your bed

what i deemed my body broken--breaking--
in crumbs to fill your little needs--
how shall i feed you, small famished soul?

And you, weaned and closemouthed at last
will (unbearable opening) you will
go on through my heartbreak, opening,
opening--

what will my heart unscrewed
and opened bring into the world?

layette

While you, gray clumsy duck, swim and dream
through my big bellied days
I am not idle. I twist and twist the thread
(What swanwings some mothers dream)
Await with dread your hatching into
this marsh of imperfections.

Sorrow enough to be a refugee--
How can I bring you forth? What prince,
with what brief day's skin-inclination
will cover, too, you (angles
and wet feathers, eager maw,
mad demanding eyes)
With the thin gloss of lust unsatisfied?

Unborn, already, your wings grow
twisted: uncovered they will outrage our eyes
like skin scraped off
and if you fly--
                           (poor bird, you will not fly)
I sit sewing tiny shirts to wrap you in

Nettles and thistles:
I will wrap you tenderly, in prickles.
I have been saving thorns my mother gave me
and thorns I sought out new.
For you, little bird,
for you:
Oh, I will prick scars in your new skin.

The spinning bites my fingers.
I do not stop twisting. The shirt is oddshaped,
lumpy.
I work, and wait. I know
this garment I make,
rashing my hands,
it cannot make you
(Sweet crooked bird)
manshaped

birthday

In spring you shared good news--
two babies! Due November --
like a plate of freshbaked cookies.
New life is sweet in the mouth,
brown sugar and vanilla.
A taste to savor--
God is good
Taste, unseen, eyes built,
fingers unfolding,
the knitting of new bodies with new souls

Summer brought figs and wasps.
Untwinned, too, one twin
One sister, to be born
half of a pair--
What memory of sister cells long melted?
What redseamed and burning loss
sewn up in every stitch of joy?
May I beside you drop my tears
for these dear twins
Purl tears, still, for that pearl
that little lump of cells
they took--
unfingered still, and unfarewelled--
in glass
away--

The birthday--Ruby Mae!
Born in November
in a cold far place,
a white gray winter
To know you hold, at last, the small bright crown
to nine months' long ring of grief and hope
Touch her fingers.
Hold her curled into your shoulder--
We unwrap your news like early Christmas
bright with red ribbons.
Is God not good? 
The tears we paid seem guarantee
of days and years thick with sweet memories--

Till an imperfect heart's small raveling
surgeon stitched, still opens
and opens, and opens
its unstoppable switch: breath
to emptiness.
We watch ribbons spin and shred in a black sea.
Was one not enough?
Something beside you--faroff
in my own gray home
I share the indignities:
mucus, tears, acid
puncturing the days with its
unbearable taste--
 
Dear friend,
Let me sit down with you
at this bitter plate.
To weep
and hope
and pray.
God is good --
To believe, together,
that promise,
that unshakeable one day.

baby

New grief sat sharp in my mouth
a thinedged stone
or broken glass

it pressed heavy on my throat
i could not swallow

Like a lost tooth
or a sore new wound
i probed it

Scraped it against my tongue until
spit and blood filled my mouth
bitter

until i learned its edges
until its edges (week by week) dissolved
in tears

sometimes i almost forget
grief worn smooth and warm
round and creamy as a pearl

i Tell it now like beads
with prayer, with thanks
this precious sweet small grief

Birth day

Little pearl, little bud, little bird
curled, never hatching

i held you furled and fingerless
in lightless warmth
my bones were singing for you

we had not even wrapped you up
in a name, or names --

I hold you in my dim mind, still,
eyeless--lustrous
contained and secret as a pearl.

We are two stones
within one hand. One blind
pebble. And you sparking
bold faceted

you, named, unfolding
in what brilliant frills
in bright beholding

Not waiting, pearl unfurled
my day for birth--

geneva going to bed

Geneva going to bed
is a snail
(curious pause at every book or block)
ooching long inches
Leaves a peanut butter trail

mama

Pampers
Huggies
Luvs
Storebrand

Each brand -- four varieties
Or more
Wetguard, clothfit, baby dry
technology
To buy --

And formula
(my breasts are dry
with diets -- but this,
ironblessed,
digestible,
with live and active cultures
is better still
than my own milk)

And babyfood
already pressed
organic squeezable
kale quinoa acai

foods healthier than i
unwealthy
eat myself --

You see
how you are loved --


Your toys are handmade wood,
BCP free
organic cotton
approved by me

Your mother --

Dear, in Africa
penniless,
I would
Defend you
knife
and teeth
and fist --

Here, blessed
with health insurance,
costly crown!
and monthly paychecks,
see how i drown
your little needs in bounty ==

Baby
see
How much
(organic
 hypoallergenic
dye- and gluten-free)
you are
to
me

Child

Oh Child
Your eyes, so tender-wide
(I am not the first to draw this spiderline)

soft skin and tender petals
faintly fuzzed--
From Eve we have loved so, our similes
cut canyons --

Still

the sweet hungry curve
your smallbird neck
stretched so fracturable-strong --

Your mouth, your twotooth smile
confidently sweet
as a wide, bright summer sky --
you bite

two teeth and gums
Into this life
Into this crisp and sweet --

Your little clouds blown past
You have not reached
the grainy, mealy bruise
the hard and bitter seeds --

Your birdmouth opens
hungry, wide
to bite this world
so new, so crisp, so sweet

Shoebox

i am saving all of the shouting
i am not shouting, i am stuffing
it into a shoebox
i keep the shoebox under my bed

goddammit i want my breasts back
i fed you two hours ago
i fed you two hours ago
i just fed you two hours ago
i fed you two fucking hours ago
i am tired of being hungry every two hours

a bowl of oatmeal
a handful of granola
half a cookie
another half a cookie
a peach
another peach
a handful of granola
the leftover beans, salad, a cookie
an apple
another damn cookie

it's only an hour to dinner and i
am so damn tired of being hungry

and tired,
if you would take a nap i would
take a nap
i would like
not to have to choose
between exercising or writing or taking a shower
or just working a goddam crossword puzzle

i have never loved anything 
as much as your sweet face sleeping

i am saving up this box,
under my bed,
i need more than a shoebox,
i'm buying a filebox,
maybe a refrigerator box

every time i want to snap
i look at your sweet fussy face all
screwed up and unhappy
and somehow i'm kissing
your toes, your fat cheeks that smell 
always, like sour cheese
the fuzzy duckfeathers on your round head --

i'm telling you that box is going to fill up so fast
pretty soon i'll have enough to sew up 
all of those un-shouts and -slaps into one great big blue
and scarlet hot-air balloon
and i will be the world's first mother
to actually fly away to Australia

(probably not the first)

i might spend a whole day
three hours anyway
or at least an hour
before i have to come back
and kiss my baby

$fifty

so what if this woman gets raped God
you know He had nothing to do with that
jesus standing there crying behind His eyelids,
Oh honey, you know I didn't mean for that to happen, why
Can't we all just love each other like I do
My yoke is easy and my burden is light, you know
I would never ask you to carry
that, and
it's your body not that poor
bastard's not that maybe baby's and it
probably would have had something wrong with it anyway
so many of them do
Oh honey I don't want that for you
nothing but a baby yourself, go
Get you that fifty-
dollar unbaby off the shelf

Trite

Those wide eyes like hooks
bit in my heart, and drew it out

in long strings, like angelhair
all tangled --

They were not black, after all
those strings
nor the tired brown of driedup blood

but wincing rosepink and violet.
Too soft, like pasta cooked too long

trite
like jigsaw sunsets.

That snarled yarnball
that unshelled uncurled astonished snail

is too-pink and heavy, tender still
from your small-weak-inexorable pull--

How can i

Already you press so eagerly
against my skin.
How can i give you to the world?

How can i give you to the world?
This world is nothing gentle,
nothing kind
(but there are stars --)

How can i give you to the world?
To the hooked praise of kind strangers,
to our too-knowing darts --
(We will draw out your heart
in strings
and play cat's cradle):

but there are stars --

i will give you to the stars staring
to the smutface moon
to the thin lines of trees twigbare in January
and small frogs crying like crickets.

i will give you to the good, green grass
to the small heartbreaks of snails beneath your boots
to the uncurling of spring leaves, chartreuse, translucent,
tender, brave.

i will give you to the summer sky: unlined
and doorless blue
to the reek of lost birds' bones beside the path,
to the mindless trundling of beetles
sparking gembright in their mud and shit.

i will give you to your days
to their thousand sharptooth beauties
to their thousand thousand betrayals
small and deep.

i will give you to the misery
(the miracle)
of your small skin.
With my blood i will give you to the world
wrapped in your body
so thin a wall, so
permeable