Conventional Girl

When i was young i liked girls in leather dogcollars
said i would dye my hair blue
wanted mermaid tattoos

i would write sadbeautiful poems
or the great american novel (all gorgeous despair)

i would wear all black
and paint my fingernails black
my eyelids black
my words black
i would talk back

i would write sadbeautiful poems
the gorgeous great american despair

i would smoke cigarettes and look bored
i would breathe in all the colours of the world

(when i was young i was a good girl)

Easter thoughts

Resurrection: no mere symbol, no parable
although you loved parables.

Resurrection means life, breath,
skin clogged with road dust, damp with sweat.

Family suppers sweet scented with bread
with red wine,
nose full, mouth full, belly full.

The trees are budding white, maroon, cherry-pink.
The lawns open all their violet eyes.

On every road i may meet you.

It feels like summer today!

Oh brilliant green!
all the hills are breaking out
in violets and dandelions.

The trees too are holding out hands
and hands full of flowers,
white and pink

I am the night sky
blushing midnight
smiling stars and stars
and still more stars

Sugar

Sweetheart, they call us, honeybunch
sugarpie. Us women,
where i'm from.
I'm as Southern as any Southern girl
but these names rankled.
Endearing, perhaps,
undeniably trivializing.

I thought:
Is what we are to them wrapped up
in such toile-patterned packages, such
sticky diminutives?

Now i am a wife.
My husband has his names for me,
not sweet, i am not at all sweet, i am not
sweet to him:
only old men who don't know me call me
(call all girls) Sugar--

Now i have been a mother.

I have been your mother. I felt
the world uncurling in my womb:

Now my baby done left me, i can't find
no sweetness any more

It's still good, this life, it tastes
like wholemeal bread
like good brown rice.
It's just

you were my sugar.

My little chilli pepper

my vinegar pickle

the drop of perfect honey on my tongue.

Goodbye, lullaby

Goodbye baby,

gone to grace

out of my body.

Save a place

beside you

till i come.

Though i be waiting

long and long

till i come home, dear,

i will come.

Whatever years

are set to pass

may you and i

grow in grace,

grow in love

for Him we love.

You were a gift,

a pearl, a rose.

I do not own

nor would i wish, dear,

to steal your love.

Your body,

your small heart,

were never mine.

But i am yours:

i was your mother,

for a time.

Little rosebud,

you were housed, dear,

in my skin:

I was your bread,

i was your wine.

You breathed my breath.

Your life in mine

was a rich gift.

And at the end

my blood washed your flesh.

i own no part in

your small heart.

i carried you
for a few days--
carry you still, but

it is not your face

i shall best love

when I come home.

But i shall love you, dear,

when i do come.

Little gift, little pearl

you were not mine.

But i was, dear,

your mother,

for a time.

The Poet Asks Forgiveness

This

On a bright day

i have been
callus worn, and callus
wrapped. i have worn
calluses
around me,

and seedlike,
dreamless,
slept.

Oh wind, oh breath--

oh quick thrill in
every spiracle--
invaded, i am giddy.

Terrified.

i knew you in the trembling
in my roots--

You  In  This  World  Are  Sweet:

 Let me, windwhipped
(Today is bright) -- i pray
windwhipped and damp
believe

and through leaves
pierced and
tender, breathe