Saturday, January 21, 2012

Not made of anything so desperate (Month of Poetry #21)

When she was only seconds slicked forth
she stared at the midwives like their eyes
were the meanest eyes she had ever seen.
I narrowed mine too, when they told me to wake
her to feed. “I’m sorry to break your dreams,”
I whispered, and she blinked once, her
mouth open clean as Frieda Hughes.
Delirious with milk, my chest arched weightless
bobbed me across the ceiling, expressed
streams of mother manuals I should write.
The big-boob handbook is sopped with
fever, pierced with vacuum suction.

I brought her home, all furred pale arms
on the hottest day. The front door wavered,
and in the foreground, a black cat.
Sky pale green and shimmering raw with tiredness.
I made babies and journeys like artists are born,
and not made of anything so desperate as
a pull and a jumpstart for my own new existence.
I don’t give a damn for life. Is really an idiotic
business such as this worth plumping humans for?
I made her because there was a gap in her shape
a space cut out for like starfish hands, opening
and closing, silhouetted against February fires.

_______________________________________________________

Today's poem is based on suggestions from six people:


@timsterne: "I don't give a damn, for life is really an idiotic business." (Blaise Cendrars, Moravagine)
@scooter_lass: 'journeys, like artists, are born and not made' (Laurence Durrell , Bitter Lemons)
@ernmalleyscat: "and in the foreground a black cat. Sky pale green." (Vincent van Gogh, The Letters. (last letter to Theo))
@marklawrence: "I'm sorry to break your dreams." (Dee Nolan, A Food Lover's Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela)
@pinknantucket: Their eyes were the meanest eyes she had ever seen. (Harriet the Spy, Louise Fitzhugh)
@lalscotton: 'I should write the big-boob handbook.' (How to leave twitter by grace dent)

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