Third.

There are birds that sing in the middle of the night.
I know this because my window is rolled down
while my headlights light up the spray of the sprinklers
and it is hard to remember the gate code at 1 am.
It has been a long day.
It takes three tries.

He has tried  three times.
I know because I have heard the story
to each doctor, over and over again.
Today I took the suicide note
out of my husband's jean pocket
where he meant for me to find it
later. 

I gave it back to him,
told him I wouldn't claim it,
refused the weight of grief he tried
to tie around my neck.
It has been a long night.
There has been night after night
and days so dark, I can't recall the sun.

But tonight, there is a bird singing
in the blackness that envelopes me.
Tonight I soaked up death with charcoal
and tomorrow I will set it ablaze.
There is a bird singing in the dark
and I can damn well sing too.

Ode to the Peacemaker

You send your laughter through the room
paired with perfume designed to diffuse
and I wonder how you manage
to arrive always at the point of ignition.
Beauty clings to you
the way a nursery lamp holds
the last drops of sunset the dark night long.
Any other woman would bring
a hint of gunpowder with her:
the potential for fireworks.
For all your glowing light,
I've never seen you spark.
You take your translucent joy
defuse the room, dampen the cynic blades
and suddenly we are determined
to glisten in your shadow.
Shine on, sweet lady, show the way
peace in your hand and love in your wake.

Changing the tempo

The boy turns my belly
into a drum
beating against its swell
with pudgy fists.
He delights in its vibrations
striking my thighs
to watch them shake.
In all its motion
he is absorbed:
an explorer testing
the outside of the universe
and measuring its edge.

I want to tell him
that he made me stretch
into a swelling horizon,
how the tight skin ridges
that make him giggle
were mountain ranges formed
by his tectonic dance.
Some days I want to accuse
his bursting frame
for the way that t-shirts cling
and my occasional grief in
harshly lit changing rooms.

But in the face of his joy
I have no response
because of all the bodies he loves
mine is the one he knows best
the taste and scent and sound
of all I am
for all his life
has been safety, strength, and home.
So I'll sing along to the rhythm he finds
in the softness of my skin
and feel the glory grow
in the reflection of his eyes.

Momentary

My baby smells of sweet basil
his boy fingers stained purple
by the blossoms he has ravaged
from my herb garden.
He is all body
full awareness
centered in his own skin.
His knees are wet with mud
and he has eaten
at least two handfuls of dirt
but it tastes like life
so he tries for a third.
Someday there will be plans,
a list of things to be done, a
finish line that keeps retreating
but today there is a whole world
in three pots and a watering can
which clangs against the concrete.

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.