Phrenology

The concrete nature of the face
inclines itself to support
certain artifices of character
as carved into the features-
the aquiline nose transformed
to discipline, or power,
the lips, when soft,
denoting sensuousness
that touch-thin line
between a smile
and sex.
To build such things
into a face
presumes stability
a certain predictability
that allows the cartilage to grow
at such a rate as to ensure
an equivalent visage to virtue.
It demands the mold,
still wet,
to change and cling
for the merest moment
birth perhaps
and then conform
forever more towards that form
which best connects
the skeleton and the self.
These things may be
but still the face
may grow to be
more artifice, than architecture.
The only sculptor known to shift
the structure of a skull
once stiffened into selfhood
is Love.

Sinkhole

A puddle two inches deeper
than expected and slicked with grey mud
is exactly how this conversation feels.
I am thrown off
(balance, guard, off my rocker).
You are caught out
(of temper,  of patience, out of bounds).
Your mouth moving means
next to nothing
in comparison to the old tree stiffness
in your shoulders
and my silence is shouted over
by my shuffling feet.
The slick puddle sinks
and us with it
till we are both, unexpected,
drowning
thrashing about, lashing out,
a deep grey sludge
that we stick in
slowly solidifying.
There is no reason for this.
Two stiff statues
staring each other down.

Button

As I wrestle your fish body
slick and soft
two hands full of fat and skin
no muscle to speak of,
the knothole in your stomach
folded in and creased against itself
surprises me again.

Your first scar stands
as proof of humanity
the incision which sealed
you into your own skin.
I watch you twist and stretch
making tiny waves against the tub
and remember the warp
of your small foot pushing up and out
my skin distended with your force.

There is no sense in it
this resentment of a fold of skin
It is symbolic at best
but still I struggle
with your squishy kissable self
to forgive that memorial
of the day you were cut off from me.

Votive

My bones are one long fuse

Knotted at the joints

With calcium threads braided tight.

All my life I have feared flint

Carried water made holy

By my fear of fire.

I take deep breaths to smother flame

Pause before speaking to deny the spark

Its necessary air.
Fury glows like a coal in my heart
and I cannot snuff it out.

Since motherhood I feel the world

Is made of loose lit candles

A place of danger swelling bright.

Each day a thousand angry matches light

Hungry sparks reaching for your skin
to burn through your bones.
I carry always this smoldering truth
you need me like cool water
to soothe the heated hate of this place.
I ache to feel so fluid but still

I feel the anger in my bones

And it will burn out the heart of me.

Undertone

Motherhood is a perpetual grief. I see you, skin separate from my skin and I am stretched a hollowing elongation my body split in two. Fact: bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh my breath was your breath my blood your life and now the same life to life, milk to mouth. But in a series of celebrations I taste loss on my tongue. You sit, you stand, you sound out your own sounds with your soft skin flexing and stretching and changing and I do not know if my heart can swell to the size your distance demands as though these growing pains of yours tug sharp in my belly where I bore you where I bear you as my closest secret. Motherhood is one long loss from skin to speech and no one told me how to grieve it.

The milk of human meaning

I pour out my life in mason jars Measuring meaning in ounces Performing my daily miracle Transform the water into weight Into rolls around the knee Into sleep on a taut belly Into a spine that sits up straight. I spend my day in friction The constant act of pulling forth Contractions left over from the birth I didn't have Squeezing drop by drop into the jar. The bulging cycle consumes me Minute after minute the fear of not enough, The fear of overflow. I sink my heart Into glass jars all creamy white and cold.

Forge

I ate iron daily Small pellets ground smaller Dust mixed in food, in drink Sinking to my stomach And then disolved To drift my bloodstream The globules gathered drawn one to another Till their weight distended the balance between skin and spine and something had to give. I smelted within myself In the heat of my longing The fire of my fears A massy thing All iron and blood tied to me
through red communion This daily pill Dust to dust Gave form I have birthed my anchor And will never drift again

Gehenna

The etymology is important The distinction between hell and the burning place. I still smell the smoke around the corner Normal in the breeze between new rice and river mud. The long slow burn of tin cans and last week’s vegetables, Old cloth and twisted lumps of refuse. The heat curled sullenly beneath a layer Of newer waste, still shiny plastic or damp newspapers But its hunger gnawed through it all Spitting out chalky soot and sudden belches of stench. It was a dare, the sort of whispered threat When a fight was imminent but no one wanted to be caught. Dare you to stand, two feet in. A half minute, a full stretch of eternity with the sting Coming up through the soles of your feet. No shuffling or dancing. Penance means pain. When in anger, I think of damning you I see you there, ankle deep in your own spew, Feet on fire smelling all your wasted love

Terms and Conditions

Misophonia is the spike of hatred that shoots through the spine at the sound of chewing actual rage at molar grinding.

Hydrophobia is the shrinking of skin away from fluid life from liquid life because the fear is electric

Motherhood is the sprinting from bed at the sound of the wind the ache to wake my son and to keep him sleeping

Terms give rationale a treaty between the neuron jolt and the neuroses once identified, then nullified. To name it is to know it.

What is the name of seventeen death scenes and a mental list of who to call at the end of the world because your brain can't stop telling the story of what if the baby was dying?

Intentions

I wish to be for you a tea cabinet,
well apportioned
with shining panes of transparency
through which you see my purpose
all my purposes, in small square tins,
a disorganized jumble of intent
to wake you gently in jasmine green
or with brash Irish boldness to lend you strength.
Sometimes I brighten your day with a burst of color
hibiscus and cranberry and ice.
I plan to soothe with lemon and ginger
those things which might, in time, irritate
and in the evening, coax you to sleep
in chamomile fumes.
There are a thousand reasons for myself
hot and cold and sweet
but still it comes in the end to this
a kiss and opening of lips.