AND YOU, ROCK
I gave my mother
her first taste of morphine, a sweetness deep in the mouth,
her brown eyes taking on coronas of blue
as if somewhere behind them, a private sky had begun to open.
Did she let go, Rock?
Or was she lifted away
as I once hoisted you
from your beach, tenderly dried you, then homed you to my desk’s
godless heaven.
So much for me to master now my mother’s body’s gone—
Laughter floating off
the neighbor’s porch.
Azaleas suffering bloom.
And you, Rock—today, as I stared at you on my desk, your round
slowly darkened into her face.
IN REPLY
Tell me, Rock, do you think
my mother misses feeling gravity’s sly tug
as she lifted her hand
to brush my cheek?
And would that be enough to lure her back
to sniff her roses,
to feel again the planet’s brow beneath her feet?
It seemed she loved it here.
But what do I know
of the dead, what they miss? I ask you questions,
Rock. And feel in reply,
the absence that grows
when the last of the afternoon birds goes quiet
and the evening birds
haven’t yet sung.
SEISMIC
A seismic cramp.
Then my mother’s muscled orifice
yawned open for the damp hulking round of my head.
I yelped until they lay me on her. Then, left and right,
I suckled her breasts dry.
Trampling grass, pumping out soiled air,
dumping shit into bowls, flushing it to rivers that sour
with bloom: I’m running a big tab,
Rock. But you—you’re the very model
of spare. Own one gray suit.
Lord over a desktop estate that’s measured in feet.
And somehow manage without hauling
a wounded ego room to room. Old friend, teach me
to be more Rock-like. I come to you
holding a candle lit by words.
