Beginnings and Ends
22ND APRIL 1993
We
(being part of life)
like artists
re-sculpt the hands of women.
From being tightly held
we grossly bend the fingers
and swell knuckles, wrists.
We cause so much of clutching, grasping
that the blue veins
float high on the surface,
And from so much crying
into those hands
the skin is translucently, softly
loose and creased.
I hope one day
my hands
will be as beautiful
so that I may know
that I too
have lived.
27TH JANUARY 1993
In this city so cold
I saw an old woman
at an empty school
pull seeds from some tall grass
and, talking
and smiling to herself
put these in her pocket.
How is it that
so strange and simple an act
could make me yearn for
a better life,
A life I have never known.
3RD AUGUST 1993
How can I
(Can I?)
grieve for you?
sweet mucous blood clot
that lodged
in my traitor's womb.
How shall I bury you?
I have already
rinsed you from my
blood stained underwear.
I am empty
of womb and heart.
All that are full
are my eyes
and my breasts.
27 DECEMBER 1993
ECTOPIC AFTER-THOUGHTS
tonight another woman's baby
sleeps next to me
where I wonder
did they let my baby
sleep
after they showed him to me
floating in a jar?
23RD SEPTEMBER 1992
What happens to the gentle ones?
The ones tapping softly on the doorway
Gurgling silently bubbled questions
Who enter screaming
Eyes shut and shivering
Seeking warmth and food
And the thump of the old place
Who fall fluttering
in the immense space around them
Needing to be bound into themselves
to be still.
The gentle ones curving pliantly
into the hollows and fullness of the old place
Eyes and hands filling with
what the new place holds.
What happens to the gentle ones
when they grow up and old
They are the ones tapping
on a new doorway
mouthing silent conversations
Needing, needing
Eyes and hands dimly grasping
what was
Falling jerking into space
to be bound
stiff and still
Still enough to enter a new place
and be a gentle one once more!
What happens to the gentle ones?