In the Tenth Month
February 22, 2009
In the Tenth Month
for James
Most everything is clear.
The night’s moon halves
between fir limb and roof pitch
a blue pool spilling
into the steel sink, a shine
that out-weighs street lamps
and my own turning on.
Midnight rivers and tributaries
spider down my breasts, down
mountain of baby
covered in parchment,
submerged turtle shell,
to the shadows carried
in the moment’s underbelly.
The white kimono
inked in indigo flowers
no longer closes,
the sash atop my ribs
tail of comet
loose end of the script
still spooling over
the page, the quill quivering
before dawn floods
the bearable dark.
10 months and 2 years… Happy Birthday, my Crocus Boy!
(from For the Willing, Finishing Line Press, 2008.)
