The Lesson I Taught Myself

He couldn’t refuse me, couldn’t say No,

as I’d said it to the high school boy who loved me,

and later to the young professor.

My legs cinched his ribs as I sang out like

a bronco girl – and later, knees drawn to chest,

I made a cradle for what I knew would not say

No, as God had said it, had said

      Thou Shalt Not Have,

sisters withdrawn, father blotted out.

There in the night, the cloth that death has spread

on the table turned sanctuary,

       the womb my restitution,

because I could ask,

I could invite fire and make a cauldron of my body

to brew the messy blip on the screen,

the flagrant fish-child never mentioned in the Holy Books.

Thus, did I become my own religion.

Magnified. Rotund. And when the Black hovered,

when the Crush of Cloud was on me, I reveled

in my maculate flesh, the great belly a mystery,

the weight of us a warm and bruising power,

         my own, my other, my more.

The Opposite of Exile

When we sleep

rivers flow, your arm to my heart,

my foot         to your calf,

our bodies, old, turning

in concert.

Whatever warmth there is,

shared or lost,

we do not unglue. These days,

these nights. We waste nothing.

So, here, dear,

is the ragged residue

of my heart.

And here, an old hip, jutting through crumpled sheets.

Wonders and tragedies.

Joinings. Exclusions.

Old home. Unimagined belonging.

Here, dearest, my sleeping hand

in yours.