out of me, and darkness, and your father:
you.
sucking food and reason
from my body
breast, bone, fingers, hair
I remember standing stunned
by a rocking chair, an empty crib,
yellow blankets waiting for your morning
and how you came
whirling that aside
demanding, wet, bloody
bursting through my abdomen
like some monster chick, pecking the shell aside
yolk clinging.
How I had hoped to love the bundle
How it cowed me
A still thing in the bassinet:
potential screams
kitten mewlings magnified
and impatient.
I crept through my room at night, stranger,
thief, prowler in my own bed
hoping now only
not to wake you --
my husband just a dream.
Three and one half years later
bones heal, hair grows,
breasts fear no longer the insistent hungry tooth
Still you sway me
your will to bend mine unyielding
and in your brazen need
stubborn, proud, arrogant, precise, yet
unwilling to say what it is you want
you will me to read your mind
as I have always wished
someone might read mine.
I see you, my mirror
my faults transformed into
my daughter
my reflection, refracted
altered into blue eyes of your father's shape
those eyes, shining, my beacon and curse.
I will fight them until I die
yet offer up my life for them
as lightly as I might cross the street
or pick up a cup of bitter tea.
July 15, 1995
