Bringing You Up
I take you by the hand and pull youyank like I am ferocious& really meaning it I squeezethe cloth at the back of your shoulderblades into handlesto lift you
so you will move
you willmove ifI have to carry you the whole goddamned way so help me
I have a well planned day of definitives:to get to the bank machine streetcar you to daycarethen to work thisI plan thingsto work smoothly
& your legs know how to move things up in the worlda small chopper raising fury I catch on my shoulderbawling head first no no nor justice
just one heart muscling in the gutterhow far mine sinks before boarding us bothto meet triumph in the driver's eyewhere I see ourselves merelya bright mess of primary willsbefore that steely & incontrovertiblelook you give the publicbringing your mother up for scrutiny yesup to something measurablygood again
What the arms can do for younow that you are thirty-four poundsone third my ideal weightone quarter the real thing I have becomequite impossible
What I can lift to my chin to kiss half asleep
What I can wrestle from sidewalkswhen you pretend to be mineral
What I hold clear of you when the shit hits my hand& I loathe itthe shit I hold in like a muscle structurewell-toned at the Y I am this whollyabdominal characterevolving
With every repetition this body impresses me tono endhow I carry you one kilometre in the snow without coffeeor chocolatewithout sex in the morning or the squeaky clean nightbeforewhen what matters is the obviousness of exhaustionexhaustedhow the brain's role in reproduction really must bedebateduntil inevitably on this matter the eyelidsflit updown
the set ending
The Shit
After fourteen hoursthe midwife suggests an enemato make more room for you
as if all the shit in my life up to nowis on its way out
& in its place you will come
Way Out
For example I could live on another planetbut nursing would suffer& the milking blister on your top lipwould deflate
harder to begin again with a fresh perspective
Close up to youI can't find a way out of your gazebrown universe where all colour visitingdecides to stay becomingsome of your spectralvision
That for now sums me up my usualin-your-face attitude on your way back from sleepbe assured I'm there againmilking you awake& gazing
no way out of methough you may wish it someday
The pink blaze of your buttocks punishesme too, though you feel it realercries reeling from your mouthsobs that turn to coughing
The special blanket, well operated, wraps you upits hand-sewn stitches hold you togetherthough our friend made it, not medisarmed for months nowby suffusion in the red nakednessyou present to me three hours lateragain I'm so sorry
I couldn't sew a thingexcept this burn of lousy motheringto my cheekthe red one on each side yousee me wearing nothing at all through
yet hold me to the moment comingwhen pain stops &suffers our excesses suchlittle children togetherrashbummedrougefacedwrapped in blankets
Hair of the womb thatbit us one and the same, what'sthe difference
The Moment Coming
What precipitousness there is between the words moment & momthe eternity I've slipped into
sperm into the egg
on mutual orgasm my babyfinger into his earwhich made the occasion particularly memorablehim plugged up, ready to popme laying in the member
neither of us having been exactly so obvious beforeabout the universalsymmetriesyou will unhinge
Or the other wordspacifiedsoothedby siliconethose two bits of my bodyinfinitely reproducibleinsertablesuckleableif you just say the wordthe loud onethe waaha whole industry will answer
Holding ourselves back is de rigueuryour mouth on my breast could bite as easily& I could swell with erotic desire
or vanish, instead
You coax me toward the common interestthe human problem of growing upgraduallydrag me by one nipple to a reckoningwith how sexy we are
soft breast your eye is up against constantlyeunuch skin of your cheek, bellows I adorein a cycle of puffing, suckingchuffing like a pony's nostril as it laboursaround the demands of a premature bridlethis new & more appropriate moralitywhere my tit is a temple nowaround which we gather & gaze & supplicate
The suspense of feelingis killing me sometimes I thinkI will forget where I'm leading you, lapse
& feel it
& have to pull you off quicklyaway from who I've been in the world up till nowbefore I installed my heart in my mouth& came here like a virginto serve you
Your body giggles in the jumping devicein practical bliss as we've planned itcushion catching your anklesspringing you back up to weightlessness& so it goes
the kind of parenting we provide as we scuttlein the sheets, ass-naked & deliberateabout) arousal (we have forgotten everythingoutside the parentheses of platonic loveor do it badly now
only one eye each on the other's hard onthe second consumed in your all-seeing gaze
whose dear focus the sight of us like this mightsplit irremediallydespite the consensual barricade of pillowswe try to protect each other's fuckinghuge genitals from bouncing up overwhile still enthusiastically pursuing whatwe did to make you
not knowing whether you will ever let us
find it again
As you come through the canalI feel like a football player, huge neck muscleshauling my entire brain far downto where it lived in primordial daysin the pelvisnear the sacrumshaped like an infant's headringed with caput, cartilaginous againstthe forces of history coming
The history that will make it ascend, board itsevolutionary lift up through the torso and ribcagesqueeze past the heart, underfed apatosaurus with its metrerunning out, nudging it off kilter, thendull & overstuffed for a few centuriesidle at the throat, a calcifying lump not quite sureof its trajectory,
if there even is one
if it's worthy
how the hell it got here
until reverse hydraulics begin squashingbeyond grunts more like modern linguistics itbursts through to the roominessinside the back of the headmy entire head readied like a handabout to cast you out the top
giant whistle into oxygen
for the first time
The Hell
Of seeing your father in youwhen I am angry at himyour eyes flashing from side to sidebetween us
Things in the public park we attendare deteriorating
The government cares little aboutthose who are wageless
Pigeons and squirrels appear to beliving with AIDS
Your fingers wrap right around the elephanthandlebars
& your feet hold you vertical
I see youat the top of your slidethe high onegleaming
I Fucked Maria boasts the wall
Fuck'n Shit For Brains sings the jungle gym
I see you
Rather than brawnto make a man of youI choose the story of how I skatedaround a lake at nightsearching for love
In high school I had so manybrains in my headI couldn't speak& gave these smiles to boysmeaning I can never have youcan I
small yawn in my lapyour intelligent brain overmy intelligent cuntI want to graft you to meas if you won't becomesoon enough
one of the inpenetrable
Songs I make up for you are sung thena dark voice is how you will remember meif I should die before you wake
If something should happen to youthese are the songs I will remember you laying bya night without light never able to singin the dark again
If you should travel beyond my voiceI shall find you, said the mother rabbitin complete control of the rabbit universe
while I sing to keep youas barely awake as possible
From your sideways gaze through the railsmy body shaped like wicker& glowing in the cornerghosts over to the last thingyou shall hear
if I have to sing until midnightsaid the mother rabbityou shall hear my pure self
If all of the parentslove their childrenthe way we love youthen the world is far moreunbearable thanwe thinkin our newly shuddering skinsraw as adultstrusting in you to change us
