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.

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.

Undertones

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.

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