Two Poems

Dior

When she picked up the NY Times,
mother made a comment:

Good for you.

Mother was a mean bear.

When sister was nine, mother pulled her hair
to the ground because she couldn’t spell a word right.

Sister was like a stunk fish
when her face, bangs-first, hit the floor.

My god, that woman could make a weapon
out of anything:

tylenol bottles, a Cheerio box,

a few strands of black
in the thick of her paw.

Indigo

We have called the goat Oona, and she is bleeding out a kid. This is the country side in France. The river like felt eels, graveyards like cities. My niece and I sit and watch Oona miscarry, the drop of soft head, her gaze transfixed on an astral plane, pleading. These animals. Night bunnies. Pepped chickens with their snapping eggs. Oona is in the starlight amongst them. The thistle casts her face in blue and Indigo asks: Does this happen to humans, too? Four streets, one called Rue Du Midi, where I would push my niece in a stroller past a war memorial with eighteen names. Yes, it happens to humans, too, I say. The kid is born on thistle spikes. Oona licks his face. When we walk home, Indigo is charging into black. I strain to hear her feet. I don’t tell her about the phone call, how we held our breath across the Atlantic. She would be an Iris or an Indigo my sister told me, if she would be at all.