Three Poems

Birth as Agathism

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First, we’ll say: O Mama-cow, milk-giver, how your legs
                    scissor apart. How your hooves twitch in dirt.

We’ll say: We will drink what you give us.

We’ll say: How we could eat.

Then we’ll say: A nose! A muzzle!

We’ll say: Of all your yellow juices, none of them
                    like nightmares.

(We’ll say: Stash those bayonets).

We’ll say: O, baby calf, how you stutter your stringy muscles
                    across the grass!

(Then we’ll say: Escape, dear one).

We’ll say: We’ll wake you when the poppies burst
                    in heaven.

Then we’ll say: Did we take the photo?

We’ll say: Let us see let us see let us

We’ll say: 1. n. Of or related to disequilibrium. 2. adj. To be the first
                    breath of light.

We’ll say: Mama, your calf is an excuse the same way sex
                    is an excuse. The same way sight is an excuse.

When it’s over, we’ll say: little baby hooves, please,
                    for the love of God & for the blood in our fingers,

We’ll say: Find some cozy prayer to snuggle inside
                    & never leave.

Why I’m Back Even Though I’m Pissed

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Because
I need you
to scratch
the place
between
my shoulder
blades
that I could
never reach
even
if my arms
were ropes
to tie us
into a knot
& my spinal
column
were not
just a cage
to stow away
coal-mine
canaries
or a water
bottle filled
with spit

“S” as in “Sex,” She Says

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Download the poem.