I try to imagine it: making her
make herself in the dark, spreading,
as she goes, my body to its limit.
I would be her raw material, pink
as marrow. She, a map of my heart
drawn with match heads.
Our story is old. It is quiet.
How we blend—Eucharistic,
a collusion of wills.
Even my voice is motherly.
I hear in it the scold-and-soothe echo
from childhood’s mixed bag.
And my eyes. Larger than ever.
I am a body of eyes,
not one of them closes.
This is my failure of vision:
her nursery lights, my natal stars,
melt like sugar on a gas ring.
So easy, our unmingling,
I barely notice how I lose,
on the periphery, color
by color, the scheme of her.
I only see this rabbit,
fresh-born, steaming in grass.
It shines like a yolk slipped
from shell to bowl. Radiant fact,
a hot lamp on my lawn,
it offers nothing. No milk, no lily,
just the thought of a baby
like touching a wound.