Meaning
tomorrow
is father’s day they’re
here, children, two
couples spooning in
the beds on maternity a
baby boy bundled
as peace at
the foot of each bed, the
girls, small, after their bellies have
emptied the
boys, manchildren, cornrowed braids, backward
baseball caps, hoodies they
wake to argue over
newborn names I
leave them to new anger already
divided in their sons and
what has this world offered them the
painted pride of a street mural on
the vacant street a
fallen rowhouse the
ghost of stairs climbing
behind a
flaking waterfall we
watched the children dancing
last night beside
Lotus Academy a
carnival squatted on
an empty lot and
over the boarded up world a
little bird harries
a hawk
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Mummy
I
have put my right hand in charge of
too many things so I am going to try to
love you with my left knee and give my feet over
to the families at my work. How to
be fair? I have three children. Do
I give the girls my ears and the
boy my nose? Ah, this is almost
balanced: my lips to my
daughters, tongue to my
son. (No, that doesn’t sound
right.) My poor backbone
will do service to
my mother and my teeth have
followed my father to
another place and inside, well,
you have my stomach, the
children have my guts, my
patients have my liver but
I still keep my heart in
my own canopic jar.
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