You will smell onionshe said. Countbackward from one hundred.
Ninety-nine, you said. Ninety-eight.
Your ribs did not part on command.The skin was slicedand blood spurted, yourbreasts slid under your armpits, yournipples kissed the steel. Your ribs.The bones of a ridiculed arkwere exposed. The rib-breaker crack crack crackedyour ribs.Your cornered heart huddled.
(Mother oh mother your children rose with the dust of your lungs. Your wedding day rose and your parents locked in embrace.)
In the doctor's palm arteries flutteredflying up from the nest of your thigh,newborn.
